My third labour and birth at home in Okotoks was, objectively, my shortest and best one. I can say that now, looking back, but during the process it felt harder than my second one. I attribute that feeling to being in a more negative headspace. Despite my bad attitude, it was the answer to all my prayers, right down to the silly little nitpicky details.
For a few weeks leading up to the birth, I’d had several false alarms. Contractions that felt like more than braxton hicks, but each time I kept praying “not yet/ I have to do x thing/ this isn’t a good time/ I’m not ready.” And nothing came of them.
SUNDAY, June 30 – I was so tired. Matthew and both kids spent the entire night throwing up on a loop. Before we went to bed, he had told me that he would sleep in the kids’ room since they were all barfing, and that I should get some sleep (I mentioned I had been feeling some “maybe real” contractions). While very sweet of him, I did not sleep. Between listening to the three of them in the other room, and feeling mild contractions (and also praying “please please please NOT tonight!!”), it was not a restful night.
I woke up in the morning and was trying to decide if I should go to Mass in Okotoks, or stay home. I wasn’t sick (I had it the week before), but I was exhausted and also still having contractions. They were sporadic and mild, but I had this image of my water breaking at the church. In reality, that is not how my labours go, so I decided I’d be fine. I couldn’t shake this idea that I needed to receive the Eucharist before I really started labour. So I went. Nothing exciting happened and my water did not break. After Communion, when I went back to my pew to pray, I had this…feeling. Not a vision, and I didn’t hear words, but I felt Jesus and His Mother both with me, telling me “It’s okay. You’re ready. It’s time.”
“Okay.” I said? Thought? Felt? I don’t know, really. I surrendered.
When I got home…I was a fool. By now I just knew baby was coming soon. I got into this manic-prep mode, thinking that I needed to make sure EVERYTHING was ready, that Matthew was rested and well enough to help me, that the tomatoes I bought a couple days ago were made into bruschetta so they didn’t go off…you know. Necessary things.
Once the kids were in bed, I put together a meal for myself and we brought my laptop into bed to watch TV for a bit. Right as he came into the room, I had my first contraction that I couldn’t talk through. We finished the episode and I told Matthew I wanted to try and sleep, by then I knew it was going to be a long night. Around 11pm we turned off the lights and I tried to get comfortable. I couldn’t really. Just like my last two labours, the contractions felt considerable worse when I was lying down. For maybe an hour I tried to relax through them. Sometimes Matthew would wake up in time and he’d try and squeeze my back or hips, which helped.
By 12:30 I told Matthew I gave up on trying to sleep. I’d been kneeling on a pillow on the floor, bending over the bed during a contraction, but Matthew was too deeply asleep (I don’t blame him, he was still recovering from that stomach bug) to wake up in time to help me and I was feeling irritable.
At this point in time the contractions were probably 10-20 minutes apart, but I wasn’t bothering to time them. I knew they weren’t close enough or consistent enough and I find timing contractions to be so annoying.
We got up and moved to the couch. Matthew lit dozens of tea candles to make our space feel warm and cozy. I remember feeling so cold. We got into a rhythm – I’d get on my knees and bend over the couch seat, Matthew would give me counter pressure on my back or hips. When the contraction ended, I’d stand up, sip some water, go to the bathroom, and then sit back on the couch. Then we’d both sit and doze until the next contraction.
Mentally I felt pretty crappy. The dinner I wolfed down at the beginning of the night was sitting heavily in my stomach and made me feel nauseous (note for next time, a giant meal at the beginning of labour = bad idea). And I was exhausted. Two nights of no sleep felt hard and all I wanted was rest. I felt myself dreading each contraction as it came, instead of accepting it like I did with my last labour. I didn’t feel strong or capable, I just felt scared and like I didn’t know how to deal with it all. Looking back, it was, objectively, such a good labour and I wish I’d been able to shift my mindset.
I did forget that time passes more quickly than you’d expect when you’re half asleep and labouring all night. I don’t remember when (or why, really) I decided to bring up the contraction timer on my phone, but I would guess between 3:30-4am. At first, they were anywhere from 7-12 minutes apart, all lasting over a minute. I remember complaining so much, telling Matthew that I was tired, that I was scared, that I wasn’t handling it well, that I was frustrated that they were too intense to sleep through but too far apart to mean anything.
Some time after 4am, I noticed that the contractions were coming closer together, and that a few were back to back (or else just really long). By 5am the average time showing up on my phone app was a little over 5 minutes (I like seeing the average because the actual spacing was 3 minutes, then 6 minutes, then 1.5 minutes, then 7 minutes…). I decided that, at 6am, I’d call my midwife Theresa if the spacing was still averaging at 5 minutes or less.
By 5:55am the spacing was averaging at almost 4 minutes. I called her pager right at 6am. She answered very sleepily and asked me some questions – how intense, how long, how I was doing. She asked to listen to me through one but that happened to be what I called a “half assed contraction,” it started and then tapered off. “Well…that wasn’t even 30 seconds,” she said. I promised her the rest were much longer. I think she was unconvinced because she said she would be at our house at 7am, but to call if anything changed. This made me feel encouraged; if she was coming, it meant we were getting somewhere.
She walked in at 6:50. Matthew ran up to help her right as I had a contraction so intense, I threw up. Weirdly, this felt like a positive thing. When I throw up, it’s usually because I’m in transition. Theresa asked to check me and I agreed, though I made her wait a bit. I did not want her to be checking me in the middle of a contraction. When I finally lay down, I joked that if she told me I was a 3, I would cry and cry. “So,” I said, “maybe don’t tell me anything.”
“What do you want to be at?” she asked. “I don’t know…..a 7? No, a 6?”
She laughed. “You’re a 6!” I told her I didn’t believe her. “Actually,” she said, “When you contract you dilate to a 7.” For some reason, this comment convinced me that she was telling me the truth.
She told Matthew to get the pool set up. I went back to my couch rhythm, and in between contractions, Matthew worked on getting the pool ready. Once they started filling it with water, I went into my bedroom to change out of pjs and into a swim top. Then I sort of perched on the edge of my bed, and would sway back and forth or side to side through contractions. I stopped timing them once Theresa arrived, though it felt like they were coming farther apart.
Throughout the night and early morning, I had silently breathed through the surges. While the pool was filling, and I was on the bed, I had one that I felt like I needed to quietly moan through. I saw Theresa look over at me, and heard her mumble something to Matthew. I found out afterwards that she said “I hope the pool is ready in time.”
I had a few more contractions like that one, moaning through them. Theresa asked if I felt any pressure. I said no, not really, at least not in the way I knew she meant.
The pool was finally ready…sort of. The hot water had run out, but I got in anyway. It wasn’t as warm or as full as I wanted it to be, but it was still a wonderful relief. Matthew got to work boiling water and had a giant bucket with an immersion water heater that we had borrowed from a friend (10/10 by the way, works so much quicker than boiling water). I don’t remember what time I got into the pool, but shortly after that, when Theresa used her doppler to check the baby’s heart rate, I noticed her phone said 7:45am.
Even though the water helped immensely, I soon had to moan through the contractions again. I felt most comfortable sitting and leaning against the back of the pool, with Matthew crouched on the edge behind me so I could use his shoulder as a headrest. I remember feeling so grateful for him, he’d rub my neck or back, push on my hips if I asked, caress my forehead and murmur words of encouragement.
Around 8:30am, Genevieve (my oldest, just turned 5) sleepily walked in. “What’s going on?” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes. She blinked in confusion for a second, then her eyes got wide. “Mom! Is the baby coming?”
We told her yes, and asked if she wanted to stay with us, or go upstairs with Grandma. Throughout my pregnancy, this had been an ongoing conversation – did she want to be there at the birth? We showed her some birth videos and talked to her about what it would be like and then left it up to her. Since she happened to wake up while it was happening, we gave her the option. She decided to stay.
She was so good. She sat very quietly and watched, occasionally getting up to give me a hug or a kiss or go grab herself a snack. Once or twice she asked a question. I remember her saying, “will the baby be here soon?” and Theresa responding “Oh yes! I think…ah…I think the baby will be here by lunchtime for sure.” To me this sounded too good to be true.
By now it was taking every bit of my concentration to hold it together through the contractions. During my previous labour, I remember so vividly; when I hit transition, my brain snapped. One of my desires for this birth was to, well, not do that. Knowing I was in transition was really helpful. The surges were overwhelming, sometimes to the point of throwing up, I was shivering, I repeated “I can’t do this anymore,” but all these things gave me hope that the end was near.
Theresa asked if I had any music I wanted to play. I had thrown together a haphazard selection of music during the early hours of the night, mostly a collection of Audrey Assad songs. Matthew put it on, and I was surprised how much it helped. I expected music to be too much stimulation, but Audrey’s low, mellow voice singing those beautiful hymns was soothing. If you’ve ever given birth, you understand the weird, semi conscious state you enter, especially close to the end. I floated in and out of that, but I remember fixating on the words, saying them in my head and trying to mean it as she sang; “it is well…it is well with my soul…”
Every once in a while, Theresa would ask me if I felt pressure, and I’d say no, I didn’t think so. She told me she wasn’t going to call her backup until I said yes, since she was close by.
With each contraction, I felt more and more exhausted. It took every ounce of me to hold it together, to keep my body as relaxed as I could and moan as low as possible. Matthew kissed and comforted me. At one point I told him this was so hard, I was so tired and I just wanted to be at the part where I was pushing the baby out. I did move around a little, into a sort of frog position in the water, because that was the position I was in for the end of my last labour and I thought being more upright might help speed up the process. But ohhhhh man, that hurt more. Matthew tried to lean into the pool and give me counter pressure, which helped a little, until it didn’t. I went back to sitting and leaning against the pool.
I stayed like that for what felt like a long time. The world was blurry. I could smell the oranges Genevieve was eating, hear the music, feel the cold cloth on my forehead. I suddenly went from freezing cold to oppressively warm.
Eventually I thought to myself, “I need to get upright again. If I do, I bet this will be over a lot faster. I should sit up….but oh my gosh, it’s going to hurt so much.” For a few more contractions I stayed where I was, but after a particularly rough one, I forced myself up.
I was right. It hurt more. My lower body was on fire. I couldn’t relax, my body started flailing as I tried to pull myself together. One contraction. Then another…”do you feel pressure?” Theresa asked. “I don’t know…yeah, I think so.” She got on the phone with her backup. Another contraction. It went on and on and ON and I heard my own voice change, and I knew what was happening from the sound before I felt it. “Are you pushing?!” the midwife cried and I gasped “I think so!” Another contraction, and I was definitely pushing and Theresa was putting on her gloves. Everything was just pain and an overwhelming need to get. that. baby. OUT. During that one, I felt my water break. Another contraction. I had completely lost control over my body. I could feel the head crowning and it hurt SO much. And I lost it. I moved around the pool desperately, trying to find a position that felt less overwhelming but nothing did. I tried to lean over the pool but Therea was telling me I was too far out of the water. It was everything in me to lower myself back down. “Slow down,” she was telling me, “we don’t want you to tear.”
“I can’t, I can’t” was my response. The contraction ended. “The head is out!” exclaimed Theresa. Another contraction, and again my instincts took over, telling me to hurry up and get that baby out, because then it would all be over. I was losing it again, trying to get up and Matthew had me by the hips, pushing my lower half back into the water. It all happened so fast and it was such a blur, but I think the baby’s shoulders must not have been in a great position, because the midwife was talking to Matthew and getting him to help move me onto my side, so she could gently help guide the baby, which she did. One second I was so loud and pushing so hard and then the next second…I wasn’t. He slipped out, and I was sitting up and clutching a wailing little boy. The relief was, like it always is, utterly indescribable. Ecstasy is the closest word that comes to mind. I remember thinking “it’s over! It’s done!” Out loud I was gasping giant gasps and laughing and saying “I did it!” over and over.
I realized I had no idea where Genevieve was. I looked over and saw her right next to Matthew, crying. I was so worried I’d scarred her for life, but when I asked her about it later, she told me she was crying because she was so happy. I wiggled over to her and lifted the baby up and said something like “hey! That was so hard. But I did it, and I am so so happy. Come see the baby!” She laugh-cried and put her hand on his head. The next day, she told me that when I started pushing, the noise I was making startled her so she ran into my room and put her hands over her ears. But when she heard Theresa say “the head is out!” she ran right back to see. I asked if it was scary, she said not really. I asked if she was happy about being there, and she said yes. I was, and am, so happy too.
Maximilian was born at 9:29AM. Theresa said I pushed for 3 minutes. I cuddled my screaming, tiny new son in the water and thought, “This. This is what I waited 9 months for, what I laboured all night for. This moment right now. I don’t want it to end.” What felt like hours later, (but I’m sure wasn’t), the backup midwife did arrive. Adrien was brought down to meet his new brother, but was more interested in asking to get into the pool with me. His request was declined.
The rest of the morning was a haze of post-birth routine. After my placenta was delivered I got out of the water and into bed, while the midwives checked me and my new baby. It was close to lunchtime when they left, so I got to spend the rest of Canada Day in cozy pjs, cuddled bed with my fresh baby, skin to skin while I was fed and given drinks and treats. All while high as a kite on those crazy post-birth happy hormones. I really, truly mean it when I say that the happiest, most blissful I have ever been in my life were the few days after my three births.
It really was a perfect birth. It was relatively short, zero complications, in the comfort of my home, no tearing, after Genevieve’s birthday (this was a real concern of mine), she was there. Mentally it felt harder than my second labour – it took me about a week to think “pfft, it wasn’t even that bad.” With Adrien he was out, and I immediately thought, “meh, I could do that again.” But overall, what a beautiful story I was blessed with.
(enjoy some of my favourite snaps taken by the best, Wind & Willow Photography You can see my Maternity session HERE.)
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