PJ

Today, I have a special treat for you. A GUEST BIRTH STORY from my sister Jess! You may remember Jess from previous tales of birth on here. However, this time, I wasn't allowed to be at the birth (damn COVID), so I went home at 11pm and missed Polly's EXTRAORDINARY arrival. 

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My usual birth blogger was only present for a little while because of 'covid-19', 'needing to sleep', 'it will probably take ages', the usual excuses. So I've had to write my own.

12pm on Saturday I decide I absolutely must have a Chiquitos meal today, and duly book one online.

1pm on Saturday Scott suggests we have an afternoon walk.

2pm we return from the walk and I go to hang up some washing. "Hmm, a Braxton Hick," I think to myself, "no doubt brought on by the fairly long walk."

At 3pm we sit down in Chiquitos. "I don't want to alarm you," I say calmly to Scott, "but I seem to be having fairly intense Braxton Hicks."

I google Braxton Hicks to find out how painful they're supposed to be. Answer: not very, but then, is this really pain, or am I a wuss? - so, inconclusive.

We eat, we pay, we leave, and I ring Sophie, the Birth Pterodactyl, the Labour Wizard. 

Sophie deduces at once that these are actual contractions, but assures me it could be days before I actually go into established labour.

Nevertheless, she offers to come over to be with me for a bit while I get through them - after all, when else will we have the chance to dance and rap to Hamilton without any of our small boys around?

A break in the dancing. Sophie does have a video...

By 9pm Scott and I have decided to pack Noah off to his grandparents, just in case the baby does make a break for it in the night. At this point I've had no show, no waters breaking, no real sign of labour - only contractions of varying length, strength and intensity. The contractions come pretty randomly, pretty much any time I exert any effort, such as climbing the stairs to the toilet, or attempting a sexy knock-knees slutdrop á la Lin-Manuel Miranda. If this is labour, it's completely different from my last labour. 

Hamilton finishes and we take Soph home. She has been fantastic, but she got what she came for: uninterrupted Hamilton. Also we still believe at this point that I could be going for another couple of days yet. So attempting sleep is the order of the night.

Scott and I go to bed and I continue contracting, with burgeoning intensity, and much pain in the back and arse. A few times I get up and go to the loo, partly because pregnancy has turned my bladder into a seive, and partly to see if there's anything coming out. Getting out of bed makes me shake like a leaf. "This is my body's way of telling me this house is too cold for a newborn," I tell myself through chattering teeth. The last time this happens, I decide I must run myself a bath to warm up and hopefully make the contractions easier to deal with. Later, I realise this is probably the same give-up-or-go-home mindset that usually signals the barmy transition phase. 

At 1:40 I get in the bath on my knees and instantly need to push. And I do push. "Gordon Bennett," I cry, "I cannot push, I've barely had a real contraction yet."

I sit back, contract again almost instantly, and out comes a lovely meaty show.

Hard on the heels of this one follows another great pushy contraction, which expels breaking water like a jetski engine being kicked into touch, practically hurling me backwards through the bath water.

At this point I realise I should probably already be in hospital. 

I shout Scott and he wakes up and comes running. Within five minutes we are in the car, and I am wailing and panicking - after what until this point has been a very quiet, fuss-free labour - because I need to push and I WILL push. I can feel the baby's head crowning in the car. There is no traffic; we reach the hospital in less than 10 minutes, grab whatever we can, and stagger towards the mat unit. I am hysterical because the baby is about to be born in the car park. I have the urge to "get low" in Soph's words - not in an apple-bottom-jeans, boots-with-the-fur way - more that I need to hunker down on the concrete and deliver. Scott rings the button and I sob "THE BABY'S HEAD HAS COME OUT" into the intercom. I don't know how I get all the way to triage, which is on the first floor. Scott is trying fruitlessly to make me go faster, reassuring me that the baby's head can't possibly be out, and telling me to breathe. I am panting, to try and keep her in!

Thank goodness, despite the total lack of warning, midwives are at the ready. No waiting for triage this time. I am bundled in to the nearest delivery room, and stagger towards the bed, trying to shrug off my pants. Scott sees, to his amazement, that actually the baby's head IS hanging out. I barely get a knee on the bed and out she tumbles, all 7lb 15oz of her. "Did you want to keep these pants?" says the midwife doubtfully. They are in the bin now.

In the madness that follows - me trying to remove my clothes and snuggle the child at the same time; the midwives jabbing me and pulling the placenta out; my undercarriage being assessed for damage - someone says politely to Scott: "and what is your name?"

Jess looking fresh and not as all as though she's just had a baby

Polly Joanne, oblivious to her insane entrance

The midwives were fantastic; Sophie was fantastic; Scott was fantastic. I was largely an idiot. I didn't realise how far in labour I was until I started pushing, at which point it was already too late to try to get to the hospital, but we went anyway. The labour was completely different from my first, when my waters broke and then contractions steadily increased in frequency and intensity until I gave birth. The contractions hurt so much last time that I bellowed and yelled and punched the bed while I was waiting for gas and air. This time, they hurt a lot, but not enough to shout about. The pushing stage came as a complete shock. 

No regrets: I have a feeling that trying desperately to hold her in prevented me from doing what I would've done otherwise - namely, panic-pushing the head out in one fell swoop. All in all, a magnificent birth that I've spent the last couple of days happily reliving, like a particularly nice date. 10/10.

***

I thought I'd better give my Thoughts on Jess' Mad Birth. See, she rang me around 5pm because she was having 'Braxton Hicks'. At term+1? With a second baby? "Er, Jess" I said, "Are they starting at the bottom and radiating up?" Yes. "They're not Hicks, they're labour". She sends me a photo of the bump. "Do you think she looks lower?", she asks. The bump is a clear four inches lower than it was a few days before. 

I went over at 7pm, mainly to check her with my OWN EYES and WATCH HAMILTON. At around 9pm, she had a contraction that made her wince, and we had a small dance of celebration for real labour. When I left her at 11pm (mainly because she kept saying she should go to bed, actually), she was still able to talk during them. I was CONCERNED after the speed that Noah was born that she would experience an acceleration when her waters went, but I had no fucking CONCEPT of how fast that acceleration would be. So, I went to sleep at 1am, after checking that she was OK.

And I was awoken at 3am, by Alex, and discovered the following message chain:

FUCK. 

I messaged her, I messaged Scott, I sat and waited and Scott sent me a photo of them a few minutes later. Now, had I got the message at leg-shaky stage, I would have told her to go to hospital, since she was in FUCKING TRANSITION. 

If I had BEEN there, I would have phoned an ambulance and delivered the baby myself. 

But I was not there, so I was cheated of birth heroics. 

Stat attack: Established labour at roughly midnight, transition at 1:29am, SROM at 1:45am, delivery at 2:11am. Maybe have a homebirth next time, yeah?

I am very proud! WHAT A CERVIX! WHAT A BIRTH STORY! WHAT A BEAUTIFUL ROUND-HEADED NIECE!