By about 34 weeks pregnant I started contracting regularly one night and that scared the crap out of hubby and I so we started to pay more attention to what my body was doing. Luckily, it subsided after a few hours and we both were able to breathe a sigh of relief. But we thought that maybe this was a sign from baby that she was planning to come sooner than later and we should probably get the house together since we were planning another homebirth and there was A LOT of cleaning and arranging to do (we were literally cleaning walls and grout with tooth brushes...SERIOUS nesting). Our weekends from then on became devoted to cleaning and setting up for the birth.
By 36 weeks, our midwife did a home visit and noticed I was totally soft, cervix forward and baby engaged. I was effaced too, but only 50% and when she checked me I immediately started to dilate. Hubby, I, and the midwife were sure I was going to have this baby VERY soon. In fact that very night, I contracted for 3 hours and then it stopped but we were set up for the birth by then just in case...tub filled and everything. By 37 weeks pregnant, I had cried labor more times than I could count and baby never did show, but I did dilate to a 2-3 and stayed there.
By 37 weeks and change, I was a good 3cm and my cervix was doing funny things like staying forward for contractions and then after a few hours it would crawl back up and the contractions would get worse but my cervix was literally closing up. The midwife was baffled, so were we. I mean common, what the hell is that? She called it a “dynamic cervix” and I knew this was not going to be a good thing for me, but I wasn't allowing it to register just yet. John and I were up all night with this damn cervix, walking up and down the streets during the full moon with the weirdos out in our neighborhood staring at us like we needed to be fitted for straight jackets. People don’t walk around the neighborhood at 3 am in their pajamas, flip flops and breathing loudly anymore? Needless to say, that 8 hour labor produced nothing more than a sleep deprived daddy, midwife, and doula and a VERY irritated mommy as it was very painful and there is nothing I dislike more than pain with no purpose.
By 38 weeks, John had been stripping my membranes about every other day and I had managed to make it to 5 cm but still 50% effaced and contractions left and right but no baby...this was getting ridiculous! We decided since it was John's birthday, we'd put that baby stuff aside for the day and just have a great day and weekend since we didn't think she was coming for a while. We took the family to the birthing stones on the North Shore of Oahu which is a place we go to a few times during each pregnancy we've had in Hawaii and when the babies are born as kind of a thank you to the land and the goddesses for our very precious gifts. We did John's 2nd degree reiki, seichim, Tera Mai, and R3 initiations there that day and that was EXTREMELY powerful! By the time we were walking out of the sacred grounds area, I was contracting regularly again, but I figured it was from all the energy we had just raised and didn't think anything of it. I went to bed that night mildly complaining of pain but it was nothing I couldn't sleep through so I did.
By 4-5 the next morning (Sunday, January 15th), I woke up thinking I needed to use the bathroom. I was VERY uncomfortable but nothing really out of the norm of what I had already been going through. So I hmmmd and hawwwd about what to do and decided a bath would help me go back to sleep. I got in the hot water and it helped for about 30 minutes and then I noticed the pain came back with more of a rhythm and it was a lot worse than it had been (especially for being in the tub). My son Josh came in and asked what I was doing and I noticed that the sun was beginning to come up outside so I told him to go get daddy.
Daddy came in all bleary eyed and yawning and I thought I should have probably let him sleep longer, but hell...I'm in pain, he can be awake. :D He watched me go through a few contractions and decided to start the birth tub water (for the 4th or 5th time now) and finish cleaning up downstairs (since we swore of cleaning for his birthday the day before). I got out of the tub and went downstairs and ate a small breakfast and the contractions got worse, so John checked me and was having a hard time feeling a cervix, we were both thinking maybe I am REALLY dilated and he just can't tell. So he called the midwife and she heard me moaning through contractions and decided to come over. I am not sure what was going on with the other kids at this point, John was doing a very good job at keeping them busy elsewhere :D.
By the time the midwife got there, I was SURE this HAD to be it as I was moaning loudly in the birth tub. I insisted the midwife check me and she did...damn. No change. In fact the cervix had crawled so far back up into the vagina that she could barely reach it. I was hysterical. This just couldn't be...I was in soooooo much pain and highly irritable. I asked my midwife what could we do as I can't live like this anymore, so she reached in as far as she could and literally pulled my cervix forward and stretched it to a 6 (ouch), I was still 50% effaced, but I would be 50% for the duration of the labor and birth. Oh yes, you heard right.
The doula got there shortly after that and my pain scale had gone up so much by that point I was literally crying through contractions and it was doubly awful as I wasn't even sure if this was going to turn into a baby or not. The midwife couldn't break my water because it was too tight around baby's head and she didn't want to accidentally get her head. So I asked her if we could stop the labor (because I was sure I was going to die) and she said that she could but let's give it an hour and see what happens. She wanted me to walk around...nope, wasn't happening...hurt too bad. So we agreed on sitting backwards on the toilet and letting gravity do it's thing. The midwife, doula and I were all crammed into my very tiny half bath in my kitchen (I'm not sure what John was doing), with both of them rubbing my shoulders and pushing on my lower back during contractions. I am not sure how long we were there but we stayed until I couldn't feel my legs anymore (they had gone numb) then I got up and laid on the couch. That hurt really bad, so we switched to a squat with John sitting on the couch and me leaning against him squatting on the floor. The midwife checked me then and was able to stretch me to a 7 (very bad ouch), still 50% effaced. But my cervix was still trying to head back up north. We moved to me on a birthing ball laying on the doula and the midwife pushing on my back...the contractions picked up so much by this point I was moaning and moving around like a crazy person. The midwife didn't bring up trying to stop the labor anymore but she did mention walking again...if I could have laughed, I would have...but nothing was funny at that time. Needless to say, I just got into the tub and was going to try to relax as much as possible. We were about 5 hours into labor at this point and I wasn't having anything but the hot water.
John sat on the edge of the tub and started to push on my back during contractions and the midwife and the doula went outside to give us some time. This would have been ok but the kids started coming downstairs at this point and John was losing focus on his back pushing because he was trying to wrangle the kids upstairs and keep Jullian from drinking the pool water (honestly the video is hilarious, I had no idea what was going on around me, I just knew John was being half-assed with the back pushing) so I got frustrated and the pain multiplied and I screamed for help from the doula and midwife who came back in and I broke down that I couldn't do it anymore, it was too much, I just couldn't. They assured me I could, and I assured them I wanted to go to the hospital and have a C-section. I don't really remember the rest of the conversation but the midwife checked me again and said that she wasn't going to tell me where I was because it wasn't doing me any good...aka the same. But she did suggest a better position in the tub (hands and knees), I agreed but fired John from back pushing and leaned my head on him instead (I also started to bite him at this point and yes I left marks...poor guy). The midwife from this point on was behind me and literally pulling my cervix open. I started to bear down (very loudly) with contractions. I just gave up on the idea of waiting for my body and decided if I ripped my cervix in half oh well...anything was better than this horrendous pain. I started pushing at only 7cm dilated, 50% effaced and cervix high up. The midwife had to manually dilate me and hold me open so baby could come out. I can't begin to explain how completely awful that was and had I been at a hospital I would have definitely had a c-section.
At some point I put my hand down there and felt what I thought was the head (first time I ever felt that) and that motivated me to push harder. After one really ferocious push, I felt my water bag break and I announced “my water broke!” between screaming. The midwife said the head had about an inch to go so she stopped holding me open and started prepping for baby, telling me the baby “was definitely coming now”. I can remember hubby whispering in my ear “you got this”. The next contraction the head was out, and the one after that...baby. But no one was watching so she was kind of swimming there for a while until the midwife saw baby feet in the water and was shocked (“IT'S A BABY!”) and scooped her up right away. It was only a couple of seconds, but I think the shock of the whole situation was a lot for baby because right after she was born, she wasn't breathing...and she didn't breathe for a whole 5 minutes. Which is an insanely long time waiting for a newborn to breathe. John, I, the midwife, and doula were vigorously trying to get this baby to breathe. After a certain point I was sure this was going to end badly as I heard the midwife say she was calling 911. I started frantically screaming out to all my spirit family begging them to help us (as I knew they were there)...within seconds I was in tremendous pain again and I started to say “I'm in pain, A LOT OF PAIN!”. But everyone was focused on baby and I had the baby and couldn't hold her anymore because of the pain, so I gave her to John and started to moan very loudly. No one could figure out why and let me be because baby wasn't breathing yet. The next thing I hear in my head is “push”, so I did and the placenta came flying out. That's when my baby girl took her first breath. I knew instantly when the placenta came out that she was ok...I just KNEW. She had oxygen on her at this point and John was still holding her in the water next to me. I felt A LOT better and she looked like she did to. Then I got to hold her again without the oxygen and we got to finally bond. I also got to cut her cord (a first for my own kids).
The midwife told us afterward that she tried calling 911 twice and her phone or the connection went funny and kept hanging up on her. I know that was our “helpers” insisting that we didn't need outside help as that would have only separated baby girl and I for who only knows how long while doctors put her in observation in the NICU with formula and no mommy. That was the last thing we needed. And so it was prevented. She is my first exclusively breastfed baby and we are enjoying it immensely. It was so needed after a birth like the one we experienced together. I shutter to think how bad my postpartum could have been had things ended up in a hospital setting. But no postpartum for this mommy, everything has been really great. We are at 13 days since the birth and I am already in my pre-pregnancy clothes, baby girl is a nurse-a-holic, and daddy and brothers are so helpful to me and baby that we have had an easy ride since the birth. Plenty of sleep (for having a newborn in the house), to eat, and to drink, and the house (thanks to hubby) stays in functional cleanliness. I couldn't ask for a better postpartum time!
Eve Aria Smedstad was born at 11:09 am January 15th 2012 (Sunday) after 6 hours of very weird and excruciating labor. She weighed 7 pounds even and was 21 inches long, with a 14 inch head (ouch). With the whole labor and delivery being what it was and how big her head was vs how fast she came out (they called her the “torpedo baby”), I had no tearing or swelling...nothing. Amazing!
After her first few breaths
