Evelyn's birth story by stages of labour (and discouraging moments)

"Third babies are fast and easy" many people told me...

Early Labour (between 12 and 20 hours of manageable pain)

The morning of June 19th, Evelyn's due date, I awoke at 5am and experienced some spotting. A few hours later contractions started. Not the unbearably painful kind, but different than the usual Braxton Hicks I'd been having (lower, slightly painful, with pressure on my cervix). I waited until about noon to start using Contraction Master and to message Darcy at work about early labour having begun. That afternoon I mostly lounged about on the computer and with a book (Roger Stern's The Death and Life of Superman). Liana was spending the day at Calypso for a school trip and going to her dad's afterwards, and, in anticipation for labour, I arranged for my mom to pick up Caleb after school and have him sleep over at her place that night.

I kept referencing this handout from the labour and delivery course we took
(note the increasingly frustrating expressions on the woman's face)

I figured at worst, I'd be in early labour for twelve hours. That afternoon contractions were coming every 7-40 minutes and lasting about 20 seconds each. Darcy got home from work, we ate dinner, watched an episode of Terra Nova, and then took Dexter for a long walk. At 9:30pm we decided to try to sleep. It wasn't long at all before I realized that wasn't going to happen - it was no longer possible to ignore the contractions. We got up and watched YouTube videos on how to use the TENS machine I'd rented. I wanted to have another natural child birth and I figured at best the machine would help and at worse it wouldn't do me any harm. Darcy set up the electrode stickers on my back and I played around with the remote. Between contractions the machine would  pulse and during contractions I'd press a button and the electric current would be constant. We then watched a new Louis C.K. comedy skit while timing contractions. They were lasting about 30 seconds and happening every five minutes or so. Fast forward two hours of pacing and making use of the exercise ball and we called Wendy, our primary midwife, who made her way over. 

Active Labour (eight hours, thinking each would be the last)

Wendy arrived at 1:30 am (now June 20) and I was hoping to be at least 3 cm dilated by then, preferably more like 6 cm. The news wasn't too bad: I was 3.5 cm. Wendy predicted I'd probably have a baby by 6-7 a.m. She called Leia, the midwifery student I'd agreed to have present at the birth, who joined us shortly afterwards. The next three hours were spent walking outside with Darcy (stopping at contractions) and rocking on the chair in the baby's dimmed nursery, while chatting between contractions. Dexter was with us, too. At 4:30 am Wendy checked my cervix and announced I was 4 cm dilated. Three hours of moving around during contractions for half a centimeter? This was discouraging labour moment #1 - the first of many. We decided to head to the hospital. In the car on the way there I let Darcy know that although I seemed to be handling contractions well (midwives were joking around only noticing I was having them by noticing when I'd press the button on the TENS machine) that I was actually high on my pain threshold and that unless things started happening faster I might crack and request an epidural.

Once at the hospital, Darcy and I answered questions for our Montfort file. I mentioned to Wendy that I'd like to talk about pain relief and, well, she pretty much said no (discouraging labour moment #2). She said I was doing wonderfully, already had two natural childbirths, and would likely have this baby by 9 am (her earlier prediction having come and gone by this point). My assumption is that her thinking was that naturally things would progress quickly and she wouldn't have to reschedule her clinic appointments (appointments that morning had already been rescheduled due to a birth earlier that week) while an epidural would slow things down. She suggested I take a shower to help speed things up. Darcy came in the shower with me and we mumbled a bit about the epidural thing. I knew I'd be proud of myself if I could deliver drug free again, so I refreshed my resolve.

The second midwife, Leanne, arrived at 8 a.m., as seconds normally come when delivery is imminent. I asked Wendy to check my cervix around that time and I was between 6-7 cm.

Transition (five hours including a failed pushing stage)

I went through a very zen hour and a half of intense contractions, aided by slow breathing, sitting cross-legged and my TENS machine (it was the one thing I felt I had control over). Around 9:30 a.m. I was 8 cm dilated and starting to feel like pushing. Despite what the graph above states, for my previous two kids the pushing stage only lasted a few contractions. My waters hadn't yet broken so we agreed they could be broken manually to help speed up labour. I was encouraged to push during contractions and so I did, during contraction after contraction after contraction for an hour. Discouraging labour moment #3 was when Wendy said I was doing beautifully and she'd let me know when she could see the head. Whaaaat?! All of that pushing and you can't even see the head? She checked my cervix and I was still at 8 cm (discouraging labour moment #4) with some tissue all around. We stopped pushing. I was tired and had no zen left in me.

Wendy suggested I walk around as it would help me dilate faster. Well, I had been doing everything and anything to help me dilate for the past 25 hours and nothing had been helping, so I responded by lying down in bed. My protest didn't last long though because each contraction was making me loose my shit (not literally, thankfully). I listened to Wendy's next suggestion and stood up with my arms around Darcy, one foot up a stool, and dropping my weight down while swaying side to side during contractions. I started feeling really bad for my husband. He had been doing all the perfect labour partner things but I could sense he was frustrated at this point - not with me but with the midwives. Also, I'm generally always composed (even under extreme pain like labour) but I was a wreck: it suddenly became impossible not to vocalize pain or cry during contractions. We were heading back to the shower when the midwife did an internal check so painful I knew I was done being cooperative. I told her I was done hurting and needed to know my options for relief. To my surprise, she mentioned an epidural (I thought they could only be given before the transition stage).

There's a time lag between requesting an epidural and ceasing to feel pain. Before the anesthesiologist could be called, I needed to have an IV put in and emptied half the water bag. Wendy poked for the IV a first time and failed. She poked it another time and failed. Meanwhile the intense contractions continued to come and go. A nurse was called for attempt number three (discouraging labour moment #5 - it seemed it would take forever before I could actually start emptying that bag of water). The nurse was successful and the anesthesiologist came in soon afterwards. I told him he could skip the talk about the epidural since half an hour had already passed since I'd requested it and I was done with feeling. The magical needle of relief was poked into my spinal cord and the next three or four contractions decreased in pain to the point where I stopped feeling them after about 20 minutes.

I slept for the first time in over 30 hours. Wendy, Leah and Darcy also slept. Leanne took the lead in my care for the next few hours. She checked the baby's position and found Evelyn had moved from being head down on the left side (as she had been for the last six weeks in the womb) to head down on the right side ("posterior") - I found out later this was the reason for the slowness in progress of the labour. Discouraging labour moment #6 was when I threw up all over myself profusely from the feeling of heartburn while lying down. I had finally felt peaceful and then an embarrassing ten minutes of filing bowls full of puke. The last thing I'd eaten was half a banana at 4am - I have no clue what I was throwing up.

Subtly at first and then more intensely I started feeling contractions again (discouraging labour moment #7). It wasn't until Wendy returned to the room as primary midwife that she noticed I was breathing through them and told me about the button at my right that would give me more drugs. This one I'd brought upon myself since I'd told the anesthesiologist to skip the explanation.

Wendy felt the baby's position and it seemed she was moving back to the proper position. I took a quick nap and when I awoke and was checked again I was finally a full 10 cm dilated. During this nap there were moments when the heart monitor lost the baby's heartbeat and that the intercom would sound scary code alerts ("code pink," "code yellow") - those are the moments I look back on and think how lucky we are that everything worked out well. 

Pushing (the 20 most rewarding minutes of the whole thing)

I was directed to start pushing during the contractions I couldn't feel. I wanted the midwives to wake up Darcy but they said he was tired and assured me they'd wake him in plenty of time to see the birth. I was worried about the pushing stage with the epidural. In the past, I'd feel everything and feel the urge to push with contractions. Turns out it was much easier to push on command. The midwives were waiting until they could see the head to wake up Darcy but he woke up on his own (looking mighty bewildered) at about that time. I felt nothing but excitement to meet our daughter at this point. I was sitting up with my legs held back in a way that let me see her head come out and then the rest of her body. Evelyn gave one short cry, just enough to assure us she could, and then just lay on my chest with her eyes wide open, arms and legs moving around.