The Birth of Donny
Being a FTM (first time mum) I assumed I would go into labour just before 42 weeks. I had no signs of anything coming out. The only thing I felt was no more constant rib and back pain. I guess he dropped but I couldn’t see the difference. He was still extremely high.
I was still working looking after patients (acupuncturist), still hadn’t installed our car seat, and my change table broke so mum and I just bought a new one.
At 40+2 I woke up at 1.30 am with some bum and sacrum surges. After 3 of them with a few mins in between, I decided to time them. I didn’t wake my fiancé as I figured he would need sleep if this was it.
They went on with 4-5 min breaks. Lasting around 1 min.
At 3 am I needed the tens machine and had to wake my fiancé. He gave it to me and he went back to sleep and I went to sleep between surges.
I gathered they would lay off at sunrise.
Sunrise came and they did not lay off. Things were getting intense, so I decided to give my midwife the heads up to let her know it may happen.
I had a shower, took my last bump selfie, and got into my Roy and Bimbi top.
The essentials! 😂
I lay on the bed on my side and couldn’t move. Every time I moved, a strong surge came. It got to the point where no position was comfortable. I was just breathing through them.
My fiancé filled up the pool so I got in. I told him to 'please call our midwife because I can’t take it anymore'. The surges started to make me raw like a lion. I legit never heard myself like this before. My midwife asked to hear me over the phone and she came speeding over. The surges seemed to go from 10-100 in a matter of minutes.
After an hour (around 3 pm) we had 2 midwives, our video crew, my mum, and my sister.
I just remember resting and roaring.
My midwife told me to try and feel for his head. He was 2/3’s of a finger! I asked her how much longer and she told me “time is irrelevant”.
“Will it be before midnight?” Everyone laughed and said most definitely.
Time wasn’t relevant. I had no idea of the time. I had a little cry and got back on track quickly. Still resting or making jokes, chit-chat in between.
By the time I knew it, he was a fingernail away.
My vulva was stretching but not fast enough for me. It seemed to stay the same.
My midwives got me standing with a leg up on a chair and it opened like crazy. The amniotic sac could be felt and seen!
The surges were now making me push like crazy.
I changed position again holding on to my fiancé. I finally felt my waters break! Then the next surge is was a whole head!
I felt so excited! I asked if the body would hurt and everyone said that the hard work was done! My midwife told me to take the next surge easy and breathe through it slowly. I felt like it was over!
The next surge came and my body shot him out like a cannonball. My midwife grabbed him and threaded him under me and he was in my arms. It was 5.21pm. 13 hours since the first surge. He was 3.7kgs and 58cms long.
Everyone was in tears of joy, except for me who was just in shock that I had this beautiful baby! He cried for about 5 seconds then just stared into our eyes. All that was for him! I was now holding this being that I was wanting to meet for so so long! I asked if I could feed him and of course, I could! He instinctively went to my nipple and started feeding. It was so natural.
I then got out of the pool and pushed out my placenta, got into bed, was fed some fruit, checked and they found second-degree tearing which they stitched up the next morning first thing by a midwife who trained to do it.
I later found out that his head was on an angle (acynclitic) for a long while, and changing my position helped give him more room to move. If his head was not on an angle, my whole crew might have missed him being born.
I didn’t want to let this dude go and decided I would bed-share for the night. We had a co-sleeping bassinet, but that could wait. It’s now been 3 weeks and we are still bed-sharing. I need to have him by me all the time! I’m in so much love.
We are lucky enough to have our birth documented for the Homebirth QLD documentary. So you’ll probably see my story on that!
Photos by https://www.olivejuicelifestylephotography.com/
Midwives: Mae't Pearson and Megan Clein from It Takes a Village Midwifery