Liam’s birth story (as I remember it):
On Tuesday April 20th I had an appointment with my midwife Deb at 10am. She did a stretch and sweep and said that I was about 3cm – but she could stretch me to 4 cm. We got home and contractions started at around 11:30am. I ignored them because of all the prelabor I’d had. Adam took Caleb to preschool and then continued to work from home. At 2:30 I realized I still had contractions – they were about 8 minutes apart and getting a little stronger. I was still in denial that things were actually starting. At 4pm we decided to call and give the midwife a head’s up – contractions were now 6-7 minutes apart and about 1 minute long. We also called our doula Sarah and she came over. Between 4:30 – 7pm my contractions progressed to 5 minutes apart and about 1 minute long. We went for a walk, had dinner and I laboured in the comfort of my bedroom. Around 7 I lay down in a new position and got a bit of rest. Contractions slowed for about an hour. By 10pm I was having contractions around 4 and a half minutes apart – and then by 10:30 they got really intense, so we paged the midwife, Luba, who told us to meet her at the hospital. We checked into labour and delivery just after 11pm. They hooked me up to the monitors, and I continued to labour as I had at home. (Although they were intense, the contractions were bearable and I felt in total control the whole time – way better than my first labour). At around 12 midnight I was checked and was about 5cm – but baby had moved positions and was now starting to go posterior. So my water was broken and I was put on my side to try to get him to move back to a good position. Half an hour later I started bearing down and wanting to push. When my Luba checked I was fully dilated and ready to push! No transition phase – just 5 to 10 in about 30 minutes! It took 30 minutes to learn to push effectively, and then for another 2 hours I gave it my all. I remember a nurse telling me she could see long dark hair. His heart rate kept dropping then coming back up, and my midwife was concerned about his position, so she called up the on-call OB, Dr. Denny. The OB tried twice to turn him, but his head was in an awkward position. HIs heart rate was still dipping – so although she gave me an extra half hour to try, we were told that a c-section may be best because he wasn’t progressing down, he was starting to get stressed and my pelvis just didn’t seem big enough. So I got wheeled into the OR – and tried not to push (that was the hardest part). They gave me a spinal – which was the first medication I’d had – and Liam was born at 4:23am on Wednesday April 21. I found out later that his heart rate had dropped as low as 60 a few times, and also they said with the size of my pelvis and the size of the baby, it really was impossible to push him out. But he came out healthy! And although I wanted a VBAC, I feel like I almost got it – and feel no regret in having to have a c-section in the end. And I’m pretty happy that labour for the most part, went how I wanted it – and I was able to labour at home and stay med free for all of it until the section.
