Adam's Birth Story

Some things are just mean't to be. My friend Jodie had loaned me this fabulous recipe book for me to use for our wedding anniversary. I cooked a scrumptious dinner with succulent rosmary lamb, and ricotta coffee and chocolate mousse,.... fine South Australian wine, candles,.... the sleeping bags were out on the floor and the rest is history, or so they say!

A few days after our wedding anniversary in 2004, I was praying and felt like I heard a voice say that I was pregnant and would be having a baby by January 15th and that I would be spared the knife. I dismissed it as my brain going a bit loopy but a few days later I was praying with my oldest son Liam at bedtime and he stopped and said to me: “Mummy, you are having a baby and it is going to come out your bottom.” I was astounded. After that I went and told my husband what had happened and he laughed it off but a few days after that I took a pregnancy test and there was a faint extra pink line. Six pregnancy tests later he was finally convinced.

Once I had gotten over the shock of our surprise pregnancy, not to mention my four-year-old’s prophetic words, I decided to approach this pregnancy totally differently to my previous ones. I had had an emergency caesarean with my first baby, an "elective" caesarean with my second but decided to try for a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean) with this, my third. I had postoperative problems from both operations and upon reading up on the risks of a 3rd caesarean decided it was safer for me and the baby to try a natural birth first. I knew exactly where I wanted to have my baby and who I wanted to support me: a wonderful midwife I had met during my pregnancy with Daniel (my second son) and an obstetrician who was renowned for his support of VBAC women. I decided to stop judging my pregnancy and baby by facts and figures and research articles. I wanted to be more intuitive and connect with my baby spiritually as well as physically so I could learn to trust in my body and instincts.

I had a lot of anxiety attacks during the pregnancy and tried to work through each fear that came my way. My main issue was whether or not my pregnancy would last as long as Daniel’s had. His lasted for nearly 43 weeks. I convinced myself my baby would come early but it was not meant to be. We waited and waited. Gradually the comments from well-meaning friends went from: “hang in there” to “well, if it doesn’t work out the way you planned that’s okay, so long as you and baby are healthy.”

The Saturday prior to Adam’s birth we visited my midwife at her home and she did an internal to see if she could sweep my membranes to get things moving a little (at my request). I started losing plug that afternoon and the rest of it came out on the Monday afternoon. I knew then that something was happening. By Monday we had no one to help with our kids. This made us rather nervous so we decided to leave home (in Brisbane) that night and spend a couple of days up at a resort hotel only 15 minutes from Selangor Private Hospital in Nambour where we were going to have the baby. We got a good deal--a King room with a spa so I was pretty happy.

The CTG trace on Tuesday was perfect. Adam is a strong little boy and he made sure we knew that. I had one pretty painful contraction during the trace and the thought crossed my mind…” how do VBAC women do this if they have to be strapped to one of these contraptions for their entire labour?” (Most hospitals have a policy of continuous monitoring for VBAC women).

We had a lovely afternoon swimming and relaxing. I had a bath with the kids and later Wayne and I watched a movie. I was starting to get more painful contractions so was up on my feet rocking for much of the movie. Through the night I was woken up by this strange feeling that I had to just sit on the loo “right then” … needless to say I didn’t get much sleep. By morning the contractions were about 20 to 15 minutes apart and by breakfast time they were 8 minutes apart. We had to eat at the buffet breakfast restaurant and the waitresses looked a bit nervous every time I jumped out of my chair and started rocking or raced off for the loo.

After breakfast it slowed down which was most annoying as I had called Jodie my birth support person (and recipe book lender : ) ) and told her to come up. I felt like I didn’t have a clue! Jodie arrived with the whole family in tow! We decided to chill out and take the kids swimming.. Jodie stayed for the afternoon then went home to get some rest. Wayne took her to the train station while I ran a bath, had a glass of wine and went to bed (by my midwife’s orders).

That night and the following morning the same thing happened: strong contractions at breakfast which slowed down afterwards. I decided that I was going to check myself into Selangor anyway. I figured that it wasn’t worth going home and they’d have to kick in sometime soon. When we drove to the hospital my contractions were only 15 minutes apart. Once Wayne left to take the kids home and search for a babysitter for the next couple of days I was able to take some time out by myself and they sped up to 10 minutes apart again and then my waters starting leaking every time I contracted. Across the hall a lady I knew had had her baby so I went over there to have a chat and got up and rocked through my contractions as we were talking. My midwife, Lynne, and another midwife, Vicki, came in to see me while I was there and after witnessing one I was told to go back to my room, stop chatting and start breathing through my vagina. I went back to my room, relaxed, read, wrote and prayed to allow the labour to intensify.

A bit later on I asked if I could go and have a bath so Lynne ran me a bath in the birth suite and put on an aromatherapy oil burner and I put a CD on of some favourite music and relaxed for awhile. At about 11pm Wayne arrived and shortly after that Jodie arrived.

Wayne went and got some sleep and Jodie came in while I was sitting in the middle of the room on a birth ball bawling my eyes out for no apparent reason. She gave me a lovely massage and then Vicki and Lynne came in to see how things were going. Vicki decided I need to shake things up, literally. She had me shimmying and shaking like Elvis. It was the weirdest thing…but it worked. I was having some anxiety about peeing (during my first son’s labour I couldn’t pee for the whole day so it was a scary thing for me). I got under the shower and then I was able to pee and proudly announced I had conquered the “pee demon”. After that my established labour kicked in and there was no stopping it. I kept shimmying and shaking and moving and groaning. After awhile I wanted to get into the bath and as soon as I did it was like heaven.

I spent the rest of my labour in the birth pool (except for the very end). I tried to stay as relaxed as possible and rocked and shimmied on my hands and knees. I welcomed each contraction and said “thank you Lord”. It was the deepest surrender I have ever known. Every once in a while I would decide to take a break and I really felt like I could switch my body off when I needed to. I was told later that I slept or dozed for no longer than 2 minutes, but it felt like much longer. The mind plays interesting tricks on you when you are in labour land. At one point during my labour I started singing “shake your groove thing” … at other times I was sobbing and saying I couldn’t go on. Lynne would sit on the side and say “it is what it is” and “let that one go”. I was being reminded to embrace the pain that would open me up, for to fight it was useless.

When I felt like I couldn’t go on I felt like I heard God speak to me in those moments and say “I’m holding your hands”. It was as if God was giving me the strength that I lacked and I would then feel a sense of calm about facing the next contraction. I noticed small changes in what was happening around me. I heard them wheel in the cart for the baby, and put extra water in the tub. I felt the Doppler positioned lower and lower so I knew that baby was moving down and I was opening up. I knew I would meet my baby before the night was out although at that stage I had no idea what time it was and whether it was still night.

I felt myself start to roar. I had heard about women roaring and singing during labour but to experience it was a whole other thing. I really vocalised throughout my labour… the whole of Nambour probably heard me! I felt my body pushing down and Vicki reminded me to direct my energy downwards. As I did this I could feel the baby’s head move down and got really excited. I looked up at Lynne and said “I can feel something there and it’s not me!” It was really happening! The baby’s head crowned quite a few times and ducked back into the birth canal which I found a little frustrating but knew that’s what happens in labour so just went with it. Then all of a sudden I felt something quite painful and said to Lynne I felt like I was splitting in two down below (not once did my uterine scar give me any cause for concern during my labour). I felt like I had to push the baby out with a bit of haste then and noticed some bleeding.

Lynne asked me to get out of the bath at that point and once I stepped over the side (with a lot of help) much more of Adam’s head was visible. Then I was squatting on the side of the bath and could feel half his head out and then in the next contraction he just flew out in one go. It was 5.35 am—just 4.5 hours after my established labour kicked in, 52 hours after my early labour began and 43.5 weeks since my pregnancy began. Lynne caught him and I just collapsed onto my knees with a stunned expression on my face. After untangling Adam from his considerably long cord I held my little bundle to my chest and looked up at Lynne and Vicki, Jodie and Wayne and we all just cried. There was a lot of blood but I didn’t care, I had a beautiful and big healthy baby in my arms and couldn’t feel a thing other than euphoria.

Adam looked perfect He was the healthiest of all my babies and he was also the biggest: 4.27kg (9ib 6.5oz). His cord wasn’t cut until it stopped pulsating and I delivered the placenta naturally too (which took a lot more effort than I would have liked at that point--- I was exhausted). The placenta was huge and healthy.

Unfortunately my tear was such that it couldn’t be sutured with a local anaesthetic so they wheeled me up to theatre a few hours later to be sutured under a light GA. I didn’t really mind as I knew Wayne was taking good care of Adam and we had had a lot of time together after the birth.

My friend Kim (who also worked at Selangor) came in after Adam was born and went up to theatre with me and then looked after us afterwards in maternity. It was terrific to have close personal friends be a part of our whole experience.

Giving birth was the most spiritual experience of my life and the journey towards that day taught me so much. It changed me and made me stronger. Even though I had a 2nd degree tear which took some time to heal, I would do it again if I were to have more children. I still have a smile on my face when I think about locking eyes with my little one for the first time. His birth has made me realise how powerful an experience birth can be and how amazing it can be if you have the kind of loving support that we had throughout the process. Our family is richer for it.

Go to Liam's Birth Story | Daniel's Birth Story