Maija Puddle.com

Saturday morning I woke up excited for the day. Jonathan and I had planned a relaxing day together; we knew it would be the last Saturday alone for the two of us (cause even if baby didn’t come, family were on their way). I woke with a start at 10am feeling like I was leaking, and ran to the toilet. About ¼ of a cup of ‘water’ came out, which wasn’t enough to convince me that my water had really broken. Instead I worried that I was leaking amniotic fluid, so I crawled back into bed and asked Jonathan to pray that the baby would come soon, as I feared it would run out of fluid. Then I told him the amusing dream I had all night, where I’d been in labour all night but the contractions weren’t very strong. In my dream, I kept picturing a row of lights lighting up signaling the strength of the contractions. Bing…bing… bing… 3 out of the 4 lights had been illuminated. We laughed and put it down to subconscious wishful thinking.

As I lay there, chatting with Jonathan I felt a strange pain go through my body. Thinking I was just hungry I got up and make some breakfast, it was around 10:20am after all, and I’m a starving pregnant lady. So we ate together and during our breakfast I experienced two more of these new types of pain, so I told Jonathan I thought I was having contractions, but couldn’t be sure.
He replied,  “Oh. Well, it’s too early for me to be up, is it ok if I go back to bed for awhile?”
“Sure, I’ll join you then,” I told him. At least he asked. Again though I felt two more pains, evenly spaced out, so I knew I couldn’t stay in bed.
I got up and went to do some dishes, while timing what I thought might possibly be contractions. They were happening every 10 minutes, no, every 9 minutes, no, maybe 7 minutes.
I thought, “Ok, so maybe it’s not really labour, since whatever these pains are, they aren’t exactly evenly spaced out.” But they did keep coming, so I was getting a bit confused. At 11:20am I told Jonathan to get out of bed, and that I might be having contractions, so I need an activity to occupy me. They say labour for the first child lasts 20 hours +/- 5 hours, so I figured if this is it we need to start doing things to keep my mind off the discomfort. We had decided the day before to bake chocolate chip cookies, and this seemed a splendid idea! Yum, yum. However, by the time we actually started making the dough it was 11:40am, and I soon realized I wouldn’t be able to help at all, as my contractions were starting to be quite painful. Jonathan asked how he could help me; I was quite frustrated so I demanded he make the cookies alone! I want cookies!  I tried to busy myself, while he continued. The contractions kept coming though, to the point where I thought they were 5 minutes apart already. Surely I couldn’t have progressed that fast in an hour, could it? I was still convinced this was false labour, as it wasn’t following anything we’d been told to expect (by our mothers and by medical professionals). I figured the contractions would subside soon enough but that I’d continue getting myself ready for the hospital just in case. I began pacing back and forth, leaning on Jonathan’s office chair pushing it up and down the hall whimpering, “This doesn’t make sense, they feel 5 minutes apart! This is weird.”

At 12:20pm (just 2 hours since I woke up) I had to tell Jonathan that he needed to stop making me cookies (he’s rather slow) and give me some help!!! The pain was overwhelming by this point and I was getting quite scared. Is something wrong with me? I could no longer stand through a contraction, but I wanted to have a shower if indeed we were going to the hospital. Jonathan had to hold me up in the shower, where I had two more contractions. Jonathan suggested we call a friend, to see if their car was available… I meekly suggested it was a good idea.
About 30 seconds later I yelled, “We need to go to the hospital NOW!” The next contraction began and I started throwing up all over the bathroom floor. Jonathan quickly called a cab. Somehow I got dressed, while enduring two more contractions, as Jonathan ran around the house going through my list to gather last minute items for the hospital. And that’s how we left our house; cookie dough on the counter, vomit on the bathroom floor, and clothes all over the place; a pure mess.

I don’t know what the cab driver was thinking, but he quickly figured out what was going on from my whimpering, tears, my just-in-case vomit bag and my contractions. It’s not much fun having contractions when you are under a seat belt! The 5km felt like forever, and I realized that if we’d called the taxi only 10 minutes later, I wouldn’t have been able to leave the house unless there was an ambulance.  The contractions in the taxi were so intense and I was sweating profusely under my winter coat, so started to black out.

Thankfully we arrived before I fainted, and I had two more contractions before actually entering the birthing unit. I was going insane by this point; I had no idea what to do. I told Jonathan I was sorry but if this was the pain I’d be in for the next 12 hours, I was going to get an epidural for sure. (Hahaha… that was me in labour denial, still thinking we had half a day to go, and not a mere hour and 15 minutes left to go!) A nurse quickly took us in, and asked us which pregnancy this was. When we said it was our first, she visibly relaxed; I know she was thinking “Ok lady… this is gonna take some time.” She took us into be prepped, and tried to help me get out of my clothes and into the hospital clothes. I’m not exactly an exhibitionist, but I’ve never had a stronger desire to be naked in all my life. I ripped and flailed until my need for nudity was satisfied. Then she checked to see if I was dilated at all; her eyes grew wide and she announced that I was dilated 8 cm! I’m not sure which was more satisfying, the confirmation of labour, or the reaction on her face. She asked again when I’d started having contractions, and Jonathan answered as I couldn’t talk any more.
“Around 10am,” he said.

She quickly moved us to a delivery room and a midwife came in to prep me. At this point I was in some of worst pain I’d ever felt. I kept telling Jonathan that I couldn’t take 12 more hours of this. So there I screamed, cried, squeezed Jonathan’s hand and flailed my feet. He says I was actually quite composed between contractions, but I can’t remember anything at all. A midwife put a couple of baby heart monitors on, but they kept moving out of place during my flailing which would cause the alarm to go off, as the monitor wasn’t picking up the baby’s heart beat anymore. We were left alone for a while, Jonathan tells me, and when the midwife returned she checked, almost casually, how dilated I was now. Her eyes also grew wide, and she announced I could start pushing “if I wanted”. (I was still so surprised… and it was at this point I realized maybe the baby would be born before 12 hours…) But then the midwife left the room, and I started freaking out. “I don’t know how to push,” I thought.

I didn’t have to think about that for long, as the next contraction was so crazy intense it took over my whole body, and pushed the baby for me. I lost contact with the outside world at this point, and just closed my eyes. I could hear everyone talking but was unable to communicate, and just concentrated on the task at hand.
I started telling Jonathan, “Awhh… I’m gonna poo… I’m gonna poo… I can’t help it I’m so sorry.” (Hahaha… yes, I mistook the baby bearing down, for a giant poo.) Finally our assigned midwife came in and introduced herself. I couldn’t tell, but Jonathan said she was awesome; in her mid sixties, grey haired, with a metric tonne of thick brown dread-like hair extensions. She also spoke good English, which helped. She went to check my dilation again and announced that she could already see the baby’s head. She encouraged me to just push slowly, and to breathe. I couldn’t really breath at all during the contractions, but I tried very hard because she kept telling me that the baby needs oxygen, which scarred me. How did I lose this most basic of skills, I was thinking. She kept saying push slower and I yelled that I couldn’t help it. It was such a surreal feeling, the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life, but knowing I was now minutes away from finally meeting my baby… but still in so much pain. After pushing with the next four contractions she announced that the next contraction would get baby out. This was the best news I could hear, as there was no way I could take much longer of this… and Jonathan’s attempts to placate me with “You’re doing good, it’s almost done,” I interpreted to be lies. She told me to do a little push with the contraction, but I wanted to make sure it was the last push, so I may have pushed a bit harder than I was supposed to. It felt like the whole baby almost flew out, and I heard a cry within the second of the birth. Jonathan, with laughter and tears in his eyes announced that we had a baby boy! And I just laid down and closed my eyes and smiled. My energy was instantly gone.

The next events are a total blur, but the midwife apologized that she needed to make one small stitch, without anesthesia as it was a difficult spot, almost not worth switching. After what I’d just been through nothing hurt at all. They delivered the placenta with little help from me as I just lay there holding my boy against my chest with my eyes closed. I was poked and prodded some more but hardly noticed anything. Jonathan managed to get enough conversation out of me to agree to a name, as we still hadn’t fully agreed yet. I still couldn’t believe our little James Eden was born at 2:26pm, after me just realizing I was actually in labour for sure, at 12:30pm. I probably pushed for a total of 20 minutes! And little James, so cute. It was such a surreal experience, I just closed my eyes and soaked it in, trying to recover and start enjoying our little one.

Determined to redeem myself and show our midwife I was actually a “normal” person, I tried to maintain a bit of conversation about our baby. I smiled thinking to myself of how I’d always imagined arriving at the hospital, shaking hands with the nurses, introducing ourselves, discussing our birth plan/ wishes, using some of the different pain relieving equipment like the Yoga balls, etc. But I really can’t complain that we had a short delivery, even though a quick descent down the birth canal theoretically means a more painful one; I liked this short and sweet way. We stayed in the delivery room for another 4 hours, recovering, relaxing, and calling family and friends. Which is funny because we only spent an hour in there prior to birth. I’m told the time spent is usually the other way around.

James, you really wanted to make into this world, I hope it was because you were so excited to meet us. Even though I didn’t get to follow my plan:
- had to leave the house in such chaos,
- losing all my dignity and my ability to be civil and shake hands,
- no time to call family and friends before hand to tell them we were going into labour, just surprise them afterwards
We love that our little boy is so full of surprises for us; we anticipate many more joyous events.

Jonathan did finish baking the cookies. They taste great! But I’ll include a photo of James as opposed to the cookies.

James Eden Puddle
Born January 24th, 2009 at 2:26pm.
Weighing in at 2.9 kg (6.3 lbs)