Consumers Supporting Midwifery Care

Kira was breech at 36 weeks and I was in a panic. I had planned a homebirth with the midwives, my husband, my doula, my mom and my aunt. We had bought the kiddie pool that she was to be born into. I hated hospitals, distrusted doctors, and feared the typical birth interventions that took place during a medicalized labour and delivery. Since my baby was small, well-positioned and surrounded by lots of amniotic fluid, I opted for the midwives at the Midwifery Group to attempt an external cephalic version, where they put their hands on your belly and flip the baby like a loaf of bread inside you. The first attempt failed, but the second attempt was successful. I was thrilled!

I went into labour at 11:30pm Thursday night. I was excited to start my labour as I was 8 days past my due date, but I also knew I needed sleep, so I told my husband I was going to bed. The contractions were 8 minutes apart, so I went to sleep and got on my hands and knees for the contractions all night long, until about 4 am when I found I couldn’t drift off between them anymore. I got up and timed a couple and discovered they were 2-3 minutes apart!

My aunt was prepared to call the midwife, but I had done some volunteer doula work and knew that early labour could be misleading. I took a shower and then got in the bath instead. The hot water was a huge relief as otherwise I could not sit or lie down during the contractions. At 7am we called Celine, our midwife, and Shannon, our doula. They both arrived around 8am.

I was out of the bath by now and the contractions had picked up. I thought I was probably entering active labour, but Celine watched me have a few contractions and guessed I was still in early labour. I suddenly became frightened. If this was early labour, I was in trouble! I had a long way to go. I asked myself if I could do this for another 12 hours and I decided that I could. I would! I was not going to the hospital for pain control. No way, Jose.

She offered to check my cervix and I agreed. We went upstairs and when Celine checked me she said, “oh, you’re going to love me.” I was thinking, “please just tell me I’m 5cm . . .” She said, “You’re 10cm. You’re fully dilated.” I sat up with an expletive of disbelief. I felt great! Could it be that I was FINISHED already? I said, “what should I do? Should I push?” But I wasn’t feeling the urge to push. Then suddenly I did. It was an overwhelming, seizure-like rushing and I felt something coming out. I shouted, “she’s coming!”, but it was only my bag of waters breaking, and it burst all over the bed. Luckily we had a plastic sheet down– the first rule of homebirths!

Then the pushing started. I think it’s funny that they call it the “urge” to push as for me it was more like a freight train barrelling down my vagina. Meanwhile downstairs my husband was getting the kiddie pool ready. The pump to blow up the pool had a rechargeable battery, but it wasn’t charged! So there is my husband doing some breathing exercises of his own trying to get the pool blown up. On top of that, when he went to fill it up, we discovered that I had depleted the hot water tank with my earlier shower and bath. When I came downstairs and stepped into the pool, it was absolutely tepid. My mom and aunt laughed as they boiled water, that typical TV homebirth pasttime, on the stove, in the microwave and in the kettle. They poured it into the pool, but it didn’t make a dent. Oh well!

At this point things got noisy. I was roaring like some crazed Tasmanian devil. But it wasn’t that it hurt so badly, it was more like I had to match the intensity that was going on down below with something up above . . . my mouth. I was able to relax fully between contractions, though, and follow Celine’s instructions for pushing. Unlike most women, who tend to enjoy the pushing stage, I found it to be the hardest, most exhausting part of my labour. I will tell you that it was wonderful to push my baby out without a chorus of PUSH, PUSH, PUSH like you see so many times on TV. I think if someone would have shouted “PUSH!” at me, they would have ended up with their head underwater.

After thirty-five minutes of pushing, Kira crowned and out she came. She was put right on my chest and rubbed down with blankets. She didn’t cry right away, but I could see her little eyes were open and she was breathing quietly. Then she gave a little cry. It was such a beautiful moment. We had done it! Our first adventure together as mother and daughter was our homebirth.

As Celine cleaned me up, my husband held the baby and sang to her. She was wide awake, having no drugs whatsoever in her system, just listening to her daddy’s song. I only needed a couple of stitches and we began nursing.

I never imagined that my first birth experience could be so wonderful! I think about it almost every day, and I am so thankful. I know so much of it is the luck of the draw, but I also know that the care I received and my ability to remain relaxed in my birth environment played a huge role as well.