For me this started on the two days before the actual birth at 10:40pm when I lost some of the plug. I know it usu­ally doesn’t mean much, but it has now proven to be a very good sign for me. A very good one for impend­ing labour indeed.

That night I was hav­ing some reg­u­lar con­trac­tions, but noth­ing too painful, just enough to be noticed. I thought things might be hap­pen­ing, so got up after try­ing to sleep for awhile. They were com­ing about every 4–6 min but weren’t con­vinc­ing enough, so I went back to bed.

Next Day

The day started as nor­mal. I went with Miss Fab to our usual cof­fee and hot choco­late outing.

I had more con­tract­ing dur­ing the day. Again, noth­ing major, but just that much more intense than nor­mal Braxton hicks.

Lost more plug at 2:50pm.

We went to a par­ent meet­ing for Miss Fab’s preschool that night and I remem­ber one of the teach­ers ges­tur­ing at me — ask­ing me if I am in labour, jok­ingly. I have been mov­ing around my chair try­ing to get com­fort­able dur­ing the con­trac­tions and she must have sensed me. Near the end I stood up to walk around a lit­tle bit and another of the teach­ers came to me and said its ok if I leave. I said I am fine, but they basi­cally kicked me out with care, plus Dad was get­ting bored and didn’t com­plain at all.

We got home at around 8:30pm, had a quick din­ner and while Mr.Blab  put future big sis­ter to bed I went for a walk around the block.

Later on, while talk­ing to my mom for an hour I started writ­ing down the contraction’s tim­ings out of curios­ity. Mr.Blab came by to check what I was doing and his face went pale and he pointed at the times I had writ­ten down on the paper (every 5–10 min) and asked „what is this?” with big anx­ious eyes. I said „don’t worry, noth­ing yet, been hav­ing them since last night”. I had every­thing under con­trol and didn’t need his wor­ries to bur­den me and I think that is why I had been keep­ing quiet.

I did a few things around the house. At 10:50pm decided to send a mes­sage to my friend, who was going to be my daughter’s sup­port per­son dur­ing the birth, and tell her that there is a pos­si­bil­ity of some­thing hap­pen­ing soon, but def­i­nitely not any­thing cer­tain. It was get­ting late and I wanted her to be pre­pared for a rude awak­en­ing some time in the night.

10:55pm more plug out.

I went to have a shower.

My friend called and Mr.Blab  brought the phone in the bath­room. She was get­ting excited, but since I really wasn’t sure if the birth is immi­nent I was try­ing to dampen her enthu­si­asm and didn’t want her to be keep­ing awake in antic­i­pa­tion. It was nice to talk to her though, and her excite­ment was lovely and made me giddy as well.  After get­ting off the phone, I had my shower, which felt won­der­ful. The water run­ning down that ripe body is some­thing not to be missed.

11:40pm I made myself a quick dark rye and hum­mus sandwich.

Mr.Blab asked me if I still wanted my bath, as we talked about ear­lier in the day. Sure!

While he was run­ning my bath and light­ing can­dles, I decided to time the con­trac­tions — every 4 min / about 50-60sec dura­tion. They were just mildly painful, still not con­vinc­ing enough that they are the real thing. With Miss Fab I had only about an hour worth of slightly painful con­trac­tions and from then on it was quite clear that labour was hap­pen­ing, so I was a bit con­fused with this turn of events.

Mr.Blab asked if he should call the hos­pi­tal. I said that he can, if it will make him feel bet­ter, but if they told him we need to go, he cant, I repeat, can not bug me about it, cause I am not going. He had been a bit of a wor­ried baby with the last birth and had been ask­ing me repeat­edly when we are going to the hos­pi­tal and I  didn’t want that again. He decided not to call. Smart choice.

Went in the bath­room, which was dark with can­dles and some lovely man had brought the small TV in on the counter (ok, he is won­der­ful that way) and watched David Letterman, sipped my Red Raspberry Leaf tea and waited to see if things will slow down.

They didn’t. Still reg­u­lar, but now even stronger con­trac­tions. I was rub­bing my back through them now. Felt great though — in this warm laven­der and Epsom salts bath, sur­rounded by candles…labouring. This was truly the best part of it all. Should have stayed there.

Birth Day

I decided to get out of the tub at about 1:00am.

Had my towel around me and by chance dis­cov­ered that if I keep it taut around my back and lean for­ward while stand­ing it felt great dur­ing the con­trac­tions, which by now were com­ing every 4min/70-80sec long.

Mr.Blab was doing last minute prepa­ra­tions — bag, cam­eras, and clothes ready for Miss Fab…

I kept leak­ing egg­white stuff. Kept wip­ing it off and won­der­ing if it was the waters or just plug.

We were dis­cussing the sit­u­a­tion and whether this is it… laugh­ing and jok­ing about it. Now he was giv­ing me back mas­sage dur­ing the con­trac­tions while I was lean­ing on the kitchen bench. Just the over the oven light was on and it was nice and cosy. I had the two mobile phones in front — one to check the time of the con­trac­tions and the other on stop watch to check the length. It was fun to watch the progress.

By 2am con­trac­tions were still every 4min, but 100–120 sec long.

I think I was almost con­vinced this was not a false alarm by now.

Still on the bench with my trusted towel around my back and my lovely man pro­vid­ing counter pres­sure on my back.

We were chat­ting and I was gulp­ing water.

Went few times to the toi­let and con­trac­tions there were not very pleasant…well, they darn hurt! Sitting down was not a posi­tion I enjoyed.

About now I felt like I didn’t want to be touched much, which hap­pened very quickly into my first labour. I knew things were def­i­nitely get­ting close. The con­trac­tions were still every 4min and about 110sec long, but the pain was tak­ing me over and tak­ing me some­where else — I let it, as it was the only way not to fight and to ensure the con­trac­tions were doing their job. I would lean and relax my lower half of the body and just breathe.

Mr.Blab, now released of his duty to do any­thing with me, was catch­ing a lit­tle sleep, sit­ting on the sofa across my now very famil­iar kitchen bench. Yes, I was still there, standing.

3:04 last recorded con­trac­tion on my paper, about 110sec long, after which I woke the sleep­ing man to call my friend, the hos­pi­tal and get us ready to go.

I am labour­ing with my towel, drip­ping a lit­tle bit of fluid on the floor, while he made the calls and woke and dressed Miss Fab. She was adorable, com­ing in the kitchen with messy hair and sparkles in her eyes, excited say­ing: „Mommy, the baby is com­ing!”. Yes, dar­ling she is.

They were ready in the car, while I waited out the lat­est con­trac­tion and slowly made my way in the car. My girl  was ask­ing me about the pains and then in the midst of a dread­ful con­trac­tion (they are REALLY not fun in the car, home birth saves the whole unpleas­ant car ride too) I vividly remem­ber her say­ing: „When I squeeze my eyes, the lights look like stars”, talk­ing about the street lights. I looked at her and smiled as much as I could and whis­pered „Big beau­ti­ful stars…”

The ride is about 10min long. Horrid, hor­rid, hor­rid, espe­cially when you wait till the last moment to make it. When we got there, I waited another con­trac­tion, for which I had to use my learned from the other labour trick of caus­ing myself pain else­where to dis­tract me from the big ones hap­pen­ing in my tummy — the best I could come up with is stick­ing my nail in my fin­ger. When one is away from com­fort and needs to use the actual think­ing brain, that relaxed state is lost and one needs some­thing else and that’s all I could come up with. Then got out and after refus­ing the wheel­chair kindly brought by Daddy, made my way into the hos­pi­tal (my daugh­ter still asks me why I didn’t want a wheel­chair) . Another cx…I still carry my towel and apply pres­sure with it and with­out my kitchen bench for sup­port I lean my fore­head on the near­est wall and do a tiny lit­tle squat.

We move in the ele­va­tor and Miss Fab cheer­fully presses the button.

Out and another cx.

Walk the few meters to the suite say hi to the mid­wife turn the cor­ner find a wall, brace head, pull towel and.… another cx. I keep my eyes closed and don’t pay much atten­tion to what the oth­ers are doing.

We were told that my friend has arrived and my daugh­ter went in the cor­ri­dor to wel­come her. Mr.Blab asked if I wanted him to give me back massage…I said no. I needed no one and nothing.

The mid­wife asked me after the con­trac­tion to go on the bed so she can check me. Its not some­thing I wanted, but here is proof that in this con­di­tion, we women fol­low and do things we are not com­fort­able with for unknown rea­son. Maybe, because we just want to be left alone, or maybe because we are on some other level of con­scious­ness that is designed to fol­low the sig­nals of our own body. Anyway, I tried, but as soon as my butt touched the bed I knew it won’t be hap­pen­ing. The unpleas­ant feel­ing reminded me that this time I am not doing any­thing I am not com­fort­able with and just shook my head to refuse the offer and returned back to stand­ing at the wall. Another cx.

Mr.Blab asked the mid­wives if he should go move the car as he parked at an ob/gyn spot. They said that its  prob­a­bly a good idea and he went. I said hi to my friend and she asked me how I was going…as good as expected, I said laugh­ing. She and my girl started chat­ting up in the back­ground. Another cx, but this one turned to a push­ing sen­sa­tion in the midst. My stom­ach started to shake and the any pain almost dis­ap­peared. The mid­wife had her hand on my tummy at that point and was lis­ten­ing to the tones of my baby.

The bright lights were on, so I asked if they could get them down or off. Daddy was back by now and they started look­ing for a way to do that.

Another cx, this time all about push­ing baby. I didn’t have to do any­thing, just let the incred­i­ble pres­sure do its job. She was com­ing down, I could feel her, even had to check with my hand if I can touch her for the first time. Then decided to try and see if I could slow down to avoid tear­ing. Then I thought it would be bet­ter to go on all fours, so asked for a pad. I would just talk to the wall and hope some­one was lis­ten­ing  back there.

Another cx. There is no way to man­age the urge to  push and I was not try­ing at this point…reach down and feel my baby girl. I sup­port her head with my hand, open my leg a lit­tle bit more and her head is out. In my hand. Mr.Blab hav­ing heard the first noise com­ing from me, in the form of a grunt (by his own recount of the events) looks at me and sees the face of his daugh­ter. He tells the mid­wives that the head is out – “The head is out!” — And one of them scram­bles to me and helps sup­ports her out… while he runs for the camera.

3:56am our sec­ond girl is born.

The relief! THE RELIEF! I can­not describe it. I walk over to the bed with the biggest smile on my face and realise that Miss Fab is upset. Her sis­ter was all cov­ered in vernix and that seemed to have scared her, so she was stay­ing away. We had watched videos of births, but none of them had such a white goopy baby. I was so happy that with the biggest smile I say: „Mommy is ok, it’s fin­ished, it’s done”. And that is the truth, the feel­ing of relief is inde­scrib­able, I could have flown at that point. I have been stand­ing for the last 3 hours, with excep­tion of the car ride, so the bed felt pretty good too.

Big sis­ter was still not sure and look­ing with sus­pi­cion at that white gooey glob on my tummy. My friend was tak­ing pic­tures, Mr.Blab was all grin and talk­ing softly at his new girl, while cud­dling and com­fort­ing his first born. We were wait­ing for the cord to stop pul­sat­ing and just tak­ing our time to savor this won­der­ful fresh per­son that had just joined our fam­ily. She had her first feed. After which we sent every­one else out and got on with check­ing me and fix­ing up the 2^nd degree tear that I wasn’t spared. Although, what did I expect deliv­er­ing stand­ing up .

The lit­tle one was still on the boob and I didn’t care about any­thing else.

The gang were back and big sis­ter was much bet­ter now after hav­ing talked things over with dad and my friend. She was excited, going from this side to the other and want­ing to see the baby. I remem­bered we bought her dis­pos­able cam­eras for the occa­sion and she jumped around at the thought. Then started tak­ing pic­tures of her sis­ter… touch­ing her…kissing her. The grin didn’t leave her face. She was falling in love.

My friend left.

This time was mag­i­cal. Our new child on my breast, the other with a grin from one ear to the other, kiss­ing every­one in sight and my won­der­ful man look­ing at me like I am the best thing on earth…

I was ready to leave, but the mid­wives asked me nicely to at least stay a few hours. I agreed. Mr.Blab and sis­ter left at about 5:30am to get some sleep, although big sis­ter was not very will­ing to leave lit­tle sis­ter by now.

I had a shower, put on my comfy jam­mies, dimmed the lights even more and jumped in bed with the new per­son in my life. The ward was quiet and the mid­wives left me at peace.

I call this my per­fect hos­pi­tal birth. But I admit, I often wish I had stayed home, espe­cially after know­ing how much bet­ter a home birth is.

(that birth „dress” I am wear­ing is held as a memento in her mem­ory box…along with the vernix )

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