Jody's Birth Story
Tuesday 10 June was great. I managed to hand over the project I'd been working on earlier that day, and although it took a few hours to get it sorted, it was a tangible relief to find my plate finally clear. Later on Roj and I had decided to go out to Vynl to 'celebrate' being 41 weeks with no baby and when I met him down there he was carrying two big gift bags. His work colleagues had been enormously generous with their gifts, so I thought this was more baby stuff, but Roj told me that they were from him this time - a thank you gift for me for carrying the baby. When I opened them, it was the Canon 10D I've been drooling over (but not quite plucking up the courage to buy), and a fantastic zoom lens (better than the ones I'd been considering). What an unbelievable gift and what an unbelievable husband.
I was bowled over by the camera, and spent around 4 hours not thinking about the baby at all - for the first time in several weeks.
So whether it was finishing the work that'd been stressing me out for the last month, or managing not to think about the baby at all for a few hours, or a combination of both that started off my labour in the early hours of Wednesday morning, I don't know, but I'm inclined to think that both things had something to do with it.
Either way I woke - as I usually did - in the early hours of Wednesday 11 June, aware that a cramping feeling had woken me. I went off to the loo and returned to bed, where my clock read 3:38am. Within ten minutes I'd had two more cramps and was positive that they were contractions - they were sharp and strong already, and I knew that they were more than just pretend pains. To make sure though, I got up and walked around the sitting room for 10 minutes or so - we'd been told that false labour would generally go away if you changed your activity.
At 4:00am I was back in bed and already needing to breathe heavily through the contractions. I'd woken Roj and he was sitting there with his watch, timing the frequency of the pains. He ran me a bath to try and relax me and lessen the pain a little, and when that wasn't successful, I just sat in the bathtub on my swiss ball with the shower running onto my back. With every pain - one coming every two minutes already - I would grab hold of Roj and see if I could just survive through it. Generally the contractions would last from 30 seconds to a minute - giving me a 60-90 second break before the next one - but occasionally I would get one on top of the other with no break for 4 minutes. The pain was incredibly strong and intense - absolutely no doubting what was happening.
We continued at home like this for a couple more hours. We knew what was happening but we didn't know the stage I was at. Throughout childbirth preparation we'd been primed for an average 12-18 hour long labour which would begin with contractions around 15 minutes apart. Having no scale of the pain level that would occur with these early contractions, we had no idea whether my labour would last all day, although the frequency of the contractions made us suspect that things might be happening slightly quicker than that.
By 6:30am we felt it was time to ring the birth centre to get a second opinion. Already the thought of a taxi trip was beyond contemplation, but I knew that if we waited until rush hour, it would be agony. I spoke to the on-call nurse at the centre and put the phone down with a contraction. She took details of what I was going through and said she'd get back to me once she'd spoken to the on-call midwife.
10 minutes later, we were phoned back and told that we may as well come into the centre. Later the nurse told us that she knew we'd have to come in because I hadn't been able to talk through the contraction.
We spent an agonising 10 minutes trying to do the last-minute packing that we'd thought we'd have time for in that long-drawn-out labour we'd anticipated - in between going through severe contractions that could only be managed bent double with Roj massaging my back. Finally we managed to throw some clothes on me and make it out to the corridor, but we had to let one lift go while I had a contraction - I couldn't bear the thought of sharing a lift with early morning commuters while I was in that state. By the time we were in the lobby another one was coming, and the taxi driver - with our bags already in his boot - looked on in trepidation as I doubled over a temporary barrier outside our building, trying not to scream.
It only took about 10/15 minutes to get down to Elizabeth Seton in Chelsea - the traffic was almost nonexistent and the lights seemed to all be green - but it was the worst trip of my life. The pressure was building up enormously and I could do nothing but sit there and bear the pain without being able to change position. Roj said later that the taxi driver kept making very nervous glances into his rear-view mirror, obviously believing there was a good chance I'd have the baby right there in his car. I wasn't ruling out the possibility!
Finally at 7:30 we arrived at the centre and were buzzed in by Carina, the on-call nurse and Elyssa, the midwife, who attempted to listen to the baby's heartbeat, take my blood pressure and do an internal exam in between the contractions. I have never been so relieved in my life when Elyssa looked at me with a smirk and told me I was 9cm dilated with a bulging bag of water and that if I wanted, she could push back the last bit of cervix and I could push the baby out right there and then!
We were ushered into one of the three birthing rooms, where Carina ran the spa bath while I knelt doubled over the bed in an attempt to relieve the pain. The contraction pain at this point was beyond anything I'd dealt with before. I knew it would be, but had no idea just how that pain would feel. It's impossible to describe even now.
Again - the bath wasn't helpful, so in the next hour or so I changed positions a few times in an attempt to find something effective. At about 8:20 I got to the point when I started to want to push - the contractions were beyond belief at this point and I wasn't entirely aware of what was going on. At about 8:30, my water finally broke, bringing rapid relief to the intensity of transition labour. Contractions slowed down slightly so rather than coming one on top of another, I had a chance to take breath in between. The amniotic fluid was coloured green with baby's first bowel-movement - a sign that baby could be in distress, but most likely the result of baby spending 8 days extra inside me - they reassured me that they would just have to take extra care in suctioning out the nose and mouth when the baby's head came out.
For the next 30 minutes I went through some extremely intense contractions with an enormous feeling of downward-bearing pressure as the baby came down my birth canal. I didn't really feel a strong urge to push at any point during this stage, and so with every contraction I had to make myself do what my body wasn't really telling me to do. With a couple of contractions I held back from pushing and was astonished at the sheer power of my body wanting to get this baby out. It's intimidating to think that this could almost all happen without you - certainly there was no stopping it.
With every push Elyssa would be asking me to push harder and for longer, and I got extremely demoralised thinking that I was making no progress - exacerbated by the lack of an urge to push. But the midwives, nurses and Roj would reassure me every time that I was making progress and doing well and I did my best to believe them. At 9:00am I reached my lowest point - believing that I was being so ineffective that I would never get to see my baby. Elyssa looked at me and told me I was doing it, and did I want her to give me a time? I nodded and she told me the baby would be out in ten minutes. Ten minutes! Finally I started to believe that I could do it and sure enough, with some pushing that felt like my whole body would turn inside out; I gave birth to our little girl at 9:14am.
The most amazing feeling was when she was put on my belly, wet, warm, kicking and crying like fury. I had imagined a little weak floppy thing, but she was far from it - she was strong and healthy and wriggling and unbelievable.
It's difficult to describe what we felt like in the next few hours. At Elizabeth Seton they do a basic once-over when the placenta is born and any necessary stitches are administered, and then leave the parents to bond with their newborn for the first couple of hours, only returning if you need anything and eventually to do the first checks (weight, length, vitamin K injection, eye ointment etc). We just lay there gazing at our precious little girl, unable to comprehend what had just happened. At birth, parents notoriously turn into biased adoring people whose children are perfect little angels, but we really couldn't believe how beautiful and perfect little Jody was from the word go. We expected blotches and bruises from the birth; swollen, closed eyes and a distorted head, but Jody came out pink, round, gorgeous and alert - almost as if she'd been born by C-section. We couldn't help saying again and again how amazing she looked.
From 9:14am to 5:00pm, we made the first phone calls to parents and relatives, and then just lay there for the rest of the day - a bit tired but mostly just dazed at what had happened. We watched Jody as she got accustomed to her new world, and marvelled that she could make such a severe transition so successfully. It was truly amazing.
By 5:00 we decided we wanted to try and get home. We were tired and wanted to get back to our home environment, and the birth room became airless as the temperatures outside reached into the mid 80s. After a lengthy checkout process with copious paperwork and careful instructions, we got into the car Roj had ordered and made our way home, arriving at about 7:00pm.
And from then on it has been a case of gradually adjusting to the needs of our little baby - giving her lots of love and lots of attention; getting used to the daily requirements of feed and nappy change; watching her myriad expressions as she gurgles through the day and night. Of course there are moments of sleep-deprivation and moments of worry, but the overwhelming feeling is that we are completely blessed by this little girl. I can hardly imagine what it was like without her. She is relaxed and contented and totally gorgeous (she doesn't look like either of us!), and we are completely smitten.
My birth experience was an amazing one, encompassing extreme highs and extreme lows. I am tremendously proud that I managed to achieve the birth I aimed for - without any drugs or interventions of any kind. I'm also extremely lucky to have had such a fast labour, because although it was vicious, I felt more able to cope with fast and furious than with the demoralisation brought about by lack of progress. The pain was completely off the scale, as I knew it would be. It's a big, aggressive, unstoppable sort of pain that only increases with each passing minute. But at the end of the day it also signals an amazingly effective function of the female body - and I can't help but admire my own for getting the job done.
I couldn't have done the labour and birth without my support team either - I didn't regret for one second the choice to give birth in a birth centre - the nurses and midwives were phenomenal. But hats come off mostly to Roj. Throughout labour he was right by my side, excited at what was coming but minutely attentive to my needs. During the birth he was always there; always reassuring me and encouraging me; unfazed by the messy emotional process; being exactly what I needed him to be. And he continues now - not only smitten by his baby daughter and amazing with her, but also wholly aware of my own needs. Supportive, helpful and committed.
Jody Mette Taylor was born at 9:14am EST on Wednesday 11 June, weighing 7lbs 14oz, measuring 20.5 inches. She scored 9 on her Apgar scores. She has a fine covering of medium-dark hair, and dark slate-blue eyes (her final eye colour will establish itself in the next few months). She doesn't really resemble either of her parents, but her big feet probably mean she'll be growing pretty tall. She's absolutely gorgeous … but then I would say that!
