written by Kylee
3:40am, 40 weeks and 3 days pregnant:
My eyes open from a deep sleep. “Something’s not right”, I think to myself. I get up and sit on the edge of the bed in the total darkness and feel an unfamiliar twinge of pain. I walk my way into the bathroom blindly and turn on the light. I sit on the toilet thinking, “Is this it? Is it happening?” I see the bloody mucous. It’s gotta be. This is all new. I felt a slight cramping sensation. I walk back into the bedroom and wake my husband whispering.”Charlie. Charlie. CHARLIE.””Huh, what, what is it?””I think it’s time.””Are you sure?””Yeah. I’m calling Cortnie.” (my midwife).We walk into the bathroom talking when and I sit on the edge of the tub and there it was. The first surge. I found myself immediately start using the techniques we learned just a week ago in our Hypnobirthing class. I was involuntarily rocking and making a low moaning sound. Little did I know that sound would be my birthing song for the next 18 hours.
4am:My husband goes upstairs to wake my mom and tries to get his daughter on the phone. Telephone, telegraph, teleAlyssa. She was going to get the word out to the rest of the family. Baby Ivan was on his way.
5amMy mom comes downstairs and sits with me. My speaker is playing my meditation music while I’m laboring in the bathtub. The window is open and theres the faint sound of rain. Labor is progressing, I’ve stopped counting my contractions at this point and I’m going with the flow of my body. Actually enjoying the labor and my midwife and her assistant are on the way.
7am:Then it happened. The power went out. This is when I should tell you that we live in a farmhouse in Galloway. The water we have is from a well that runs to our house using none other than…you guessed it. Electricity. And we have none. We just went from living in the 21st century to living in the 19th century. Reminiscent of Little House on the Prairie. My amazing husband who has the strength of an ox and energy of a lithium battery has grabbed buckets and has began walking to the creek to get buckets of water so that we can pour them into the toilets so they flush.
8am:Solving the great case of the waterless water birth had the house silently frantic. I felt the energy change, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. I had bigger things on my mind.
11am:Hallelujah the power is on! My midwife and her assistant have arrived and they have things going. I’m out of the bathtub as the hot water needs to be used for the birthing tub. I’m laboring on the toilet facing the wall. That’s when the next problem arises. I can’t urinate. For the life of my I can’t do it. I’m still singing my birthing song and there’s pain now. I can’t ignore it. He’s in the canal blocking my urethra keeping me from peeing and my full bladder is blocking him from coming down any further.
I’ve lost all track of time from here on out and I don’t remember a whole lot:At some point we tried getting to the chiropractor. My midwives think it will help get things moving by adjusting my pelvis. We get halfway there and I feel the sensation to push. We abandon ship and drive back home. I’m sitting on the porch on the birthing stool. It’s incredibly uncomfortable and the sensation to push has stopped. I eventually make it back into the bathroom where I continue to labor facing the wall on the toilet. My midwife is caring for me while the pain is worsening.
She tells me the pool is ready if I want to labor in there. With nothing but a tshirt, my crystal birthing bracelet and my glasses I make my way into the warm pool. The water feels incredible. I don’t know who’s around me other than the voices I hear. I then strip. I suddenly can’t stand the feeling of anything touching me. No more tshirt, bracelet, or glasses. My song is getting louder.
At some point my chiropractor makes a house call. She’s absolutely wonderful and I love her to pieces. She tries to adjust me, but the contractions are too much. I’m so far into my own head that the next thing I know she’s gone.
My midwives have made the decision to retrieve the catheter from her home. I’m left in the birthing pool laboring. By the time they get back I’m exhausted. They need me to get out of the pool to do the catheter, but I’m too weak. The have to pick me up out of the pool. I walk my way to our bedroom. They do the catheter and finally. RELIEF.
We start trying to push. I’m so weak that the muscles I need to use won’t work. After a while they can feel his head but he’s still en caul. I tell them to break my water. They’ve never had to break a mother’s water before, but they did it. More pushing and my energy is depleting. They want me to eat, but I have zero appetite. The thought of food was making me feel sick, but I had to eat.
More pushing continued until I was spent. At some point my husband and his daughter hung up string lights. I opened my eyes and everything around me is blurry. I don’t have my glasses on and I suddenly find myself staring at the lights. Completely focused 100% on the lights. I remember this vividly. My body is doing it’s own thing and I’m not even paying attention to it. I’m tired and my mind is resting. There’s talk of packing a bag to go to the hospital. I think time myself, “I’m not going anywhere.” They would of had to put me on a gurney.
“Keep doing that Kylee. The small nudges your making, they’re working.” I hear them talking, but I’m not listening. My body was relaxing and breathing him down.
The ring of fire. I was fully conscious and his head was now out, but something was wrong. I was pushing, but the rest of his body was still inside. Next thing I know she’s urgently pushing me on my side and pulling my leg up. I’m beginning to scream in pain.”Pull him out!!!”
The whole birth is recorded on my husband’s phone. My husband has tried to get me to watch it with the sound on, but I refuse. I don’t want to have to hear the scream I made. I was there for it and I don’t want to hear it again. It was a scream of pain. The one thing I worked so hard to try and avoid through birthing classes and meditation.
They have me on all fours and the assistant has he hands inside moving his shoulder off of my pelvic bone.
9:17pm:Hot amniotic fluid running down my legs along with the sensation of him come out of me was something that made me come to my senses. The pain stopped all together.
Ivan was blue. How blue? I don’t know, I won’t watch the video to see. But he was blue. He was given three breaths of air. Then followed by the sound that had my adrenaline start pumping. My baby’s cry. It was music that filled the house and made it feel like a new home. I’ll never forget that helpless, gurgly cry. My son’s first sound. They handed him to me and I remember feeling his tiny, warm, limp body.”He’s beautiful! He’s so beautiful!”
My boy, my beautiful son, was here. He was finally here.
Midwifery provided by Birthing Instinct
Thank you for sharing your story, Kylee! I hope readers were able to find wisdom and courage here.
bornathomecolumbus.com 