I went into labour two weeks ‘earlier’ than my due date, at 38 weeks, on 12th January 2015. My midwife had told me a week before on one of my regular checkups that there was no way I was going to give birth in the next few weeks and we hadn’t even discussed my birth plan…I’d been to one antenatal workshop that gave me a bit more information about my options but basically everything I found out and researched was through my friends/family/internet/ books etc.
I felt really prepared for labour in a lot of ways, I had a clear plan of what I wanted to do, knowing full well it was an unpredictable process and it would probably all go out of the window when it came down to it anyway. I wanted a water birth, in the hospital, with no pain relief but gas and air. In retrospect I wish I had had a home birth, and I would definitely consider that if I have more children, but our small flat with it’s crazy cats and annoying neighbours would have been just plain weird.
My water’s broke at 4am whilst I was asleep. It was like in the films where someone’s shopping or on the bus and it starts pouring out of you - that did happen. I wasn’t expecting this to be the first sign of labour at all so I was quite surprised. I got up and phoned the labour ward and they arranged for me to come in at 8am to check if it WAS my waters breaking…Er, yeah I think I can tell the difference between a wee and about a million pints of weird sickly sweet water coming out of me!!! YUCK. Anyway I decided to sit up watching Celebrity Big Brother and waited for whatever was next. Contractions - oh yes. So they started about 5 minutes after getting off the phone, and they started fast. I was having them every 5 minutes from the get go, and they gradually got stronger and stronger. I can’t explain what a contraction feels like. There are no words to describe the experience of your body pushing another body out of it. In a way iit’s not PAIN, but it hurts and FEELS more than anything else I’ve ever felt. At 11am after struggling to cope anymore I went to hospital, and lo and behold was 4cm dilated - labour had BEGUN. I went straight into the birthing pool and continued to breathe through the contractions, which is the only way I could cope with the pain.
I found that taking myself away and isolating myself from my body was the only way I could try and combat the contractions which were of the most intense and immense pressure that I’d ever felt. It was a completely primal, out of this world experience. Women’s bodies are made to be able to cope with this amount of pressure and pain. We are made to create and push another human being out of us by our bodies alone., and we can not experience anything more than what our bodies can deal with. We are stranded in this inbetween state of life and creation, and it is amazing what our bodies are capable of doing.
Unfortunately, my temperature shot up and I had to move to another room to a bed to be monitored. It was on this bed that I gave birth, with Henry and my other at my side, although I didn’t want them touching me or talking to me! At around 2pm I was fully dilated and began to push. Pushing a baby through your body is another experience in itself, don’t even get me started about the ‘ring of fire’ but let me tell you this - it certainly burned. When she popped out (quite quickly, in the end) all the pressure, all the pain, everything went immediately. It was the biggest rush and most overwhelming feeling of relief/exhaustion/bewilderment. You’ve just been through the most traumatic experience of your life - but there’s no time to recover because now you have a baby!
Maud Tabitha Prudence Percy (!) was born at 2.55pm on Monday 12th January weighing 7lb 4oz. She was purple and pink and covered in slime. Henry cut her cord and she was PERFECT. Established labour lasted 4 hours! I suppose Maud was impatient like her mother...