The last few weeks of pregnancy she was sat so low I could barely walk but after a false alarm in week 38 it seemed clear she was still staying put. Finally at 4am on a Saturday morning I woke up with strong contractions. An hour later they were still going strong so I started to time them......already 3 mins apart and 1 min long.....time to wake hubby.
I took some paracetamol and began fumbling around to find my phone and the TENS machine. This time around we had planned for a home birth which meant being assigned two lovely midwives who would come round to help deliver baby. I knew my primary midwife was off for a couple of days and coming back on shift that morning as she had told me after my previous false alarm that I either needed to push the kid out before Wednesday or wait til Saturday. Unable to remember when she started work, hubby called her mobile to see what her answerphone message said - off until 8:30am Saturday. Well there was no way I was gonna last on my own til then so time to call midwife number two........and she wasn't answering! Time for plan C - calling the duty midwife. Hubby called maternity reception and they said they'd get the duty midwife to call back ASAP. By the time she called back it was already approaching 6am. While she was on the phone to hubby, midwife number one called on the other phone as she spotted my missed call and wondered what was going on. When I told her about my contractions and she heard there was no midwife with me yet she said she'd be straight round despite not being due to start work for a few hours yet.
While we waited for the midwife to arrive I strapped on the TENS machine and we began to get the lounge ready for what was about to unfold - coffee table moved aside, shower curtain down to protect the carpet, old duvet down for me to get comfortable on, old towels at the ready and home birth kit ready in the corner.
As time ticked by it became clear baby was well on her way but wouldn't arrive before little J got out of bed so it was time to come up with a childcare plan. Unsurprisingly, not many people like to answer their phone at 6am so hubby kept phoning through a list of friends.
At 6:45am midwife number one arrived armed with the gas and air (hooray!!). We were all sat on the sofa watching scrubs and joking around as she took my vitals and I breathed through contractions. It was such a change from my previous labour where I was lying on a bed in hospital with nothing to distract me from the pain and no conversation.
By 7am we had found a friend to look after little J but now baby was too close for hubby to leave the house and run little J up there so more phonecalls to find someone to drive little J up there. Very soon after Matt showed up to save the day and we bundled little J off to play at a friends house with no explanation to him as to why. Thankfully he seemed totally fine with the whole idea and went without a fuss.
Soon I reached the point where I was feeling pressure in my butt and getting close to the pushing phase - time to turn off Scrubs so I could concentrate. By now the duty midwife had shown up to assist. At this point my waters were still intact and I was just sat on the edge of the sofa puffing away on the gas and air. The midwives were regularly checking both mine and baby's vital signs and at one point baby's heart rate suddenly dropped down to 80. Things went from calm and lighthearted to slightly more serious and the midwives sprang into action to break my waters (while I was lying on the sofa) and hurry baby along. Very soon after her heart rate went back to normal and I moved on to the floor and got ready to begin pushing.
During my last labour I barely pushed at all as I was given an episiotomy and little J arrived 2 pushes later. This time I was going to have to do it properly. Thankfully, this time around I had much better direction than last time when the only instruction I got was "less shouting, more pushing". This time hubby sat behind me to prop me up and give support and it made such a difference. It took me a while to get the hang of pushing. I'd always assumed that when they say "push like your doing a really big poo" they meant push like you're pooing out of your baby hole but they really do mean "push EXACTLY like you're doing a really big poo". After almost 30 mins of pushing I was exhausted and just wanted it to be over. It felt like just as I had got the hang of pushing I was told "don't push......pant" as the head crowned and the midwives tried to get me to deliver it slowly. Apparently little miss A emerged with her head wiggling from side to side as if trying to burrow her way out!
The sense of relief when she was finally out and I didn't have to push anymore was immense! I was so dazed that when they held her up for us to see if she was a boy or girl I really couldn't take it in. It was great to finally meet our little girl and hold her.
Of course that's never quite the end of the story - there was still the placenta to deliver, paper work to be filled out and a whole heap of mess to clean up, not to mention a few stitches required. I opted to deliver the placenta naturally but didn't expect it to take another 45 mins. I eventually delivered it in a very undignified manner squatting over a plastic tub.
This time around I got to see all the blood and gore (and there was a fair bit of it!) but the midwives did a great job of cleaning it all up. The duvet I laid on didn't have a mark on it and you would never know my waters had broken on the sofa.
As one midwife checked over little miss A, I lay on the sofa to have my stitches done and hubby made tea and toast for us all. It was so nice to be in the comfort of my own home enjoying breakfast and cuddling the newest member of our family. After some final checks, the midwives left, taking all the mess with them and it was as if nothing had ever happened - except now we had a beautiful baby girl.
