Happy Birthday Gwennie–part 4

(Part ONE Part TWO Part THREE)

We left off when my mom had arrived at the house, I tried having a shower, and we started discussing when it would be time to page the midwife. I had been timing contractions for about 45 minutes, they were coming every 2 minutes and lasting about 30-45 seconds. We decided to go ahead and page because it was evident that things were not slowing down and my midwives had prepared me for the potential for a quick build up of labour, based on my experience with Evalyn.

Of course, as soon as we paged and the on call student midwife returned my call, I felt like my contractions eased up significantly while on the phone with her. However, she said this was normal because paging often creates a welcome distraction. She kept me on the phone for about 40 minutes to get an idea of the pattern of my labour and let me know that things were definitely picking back up as we settled into our conversation. We got off the phone, she consulted with the on call registered midwife and called me back. We decided they would be to our house within an hour.

That next hour is quite a blur. I know that Evan and I went outside for some fresh air, took a small walk down the road and that his mom had arrived by the time we got back. I spent more time on the birth ball, where Evan and I prayed together and recited my birth scriptures. This was the most amazing part of my labour, because despite not knowing how long we sat their reciting the scriptures, I do know that I barely felt a single contraction while we were doing that.

I was still on the ball in the corner of the living room when the midwives arrived at 4 am. They checked my temperature, blood pressure and the baby’s heart beat and watched me go through a few contractions before helping me back to the bedroom to see how far I had progressed.

As we moved to the room and they helped me get situated, I was trying my hardest not to give myself ultimatums or set goals for our far I’d like to be. All I knew was that if I wasn’t ‘far enough’ – whatever that would mean – that I would get discouraged. Things were already so intense and I just wasn’t sure how much longer I’d been able to keep it up. I remember my primary midwife, Taryn, asking me if Evalyn was at home. I told her yes, she was asleep because I hadn’t known I was going to go into labour before she went to bed. She said, “That’s okay, we’re having this baby before she wakes up”.

When they checked me, they told me I was between a 6-7 and things could go fairly quickly from here. I continued to labour as I had been, on the exercise ball and backwards on the toilet as things got harder and harder. My midwife suggested I try the birth stool – so I did – but I didn’t find it to be effective. It wasn’t long before my body started feeling like we were getting close. The pressure was building and I knew it wouldn’t be long until it was time to push. Taryn told me I was doing great, and she had already called her back up midwife, that’s how confident she was that we were almost done. My mom had called my dad and asked him to come wait in the truck outside, just in case Evalyn woke up, they would whisk her away without her knowing anything was up. It would soon be show time. By now, it was just after 5 am.

To be continued….