Noah's Story

A fitting way to end a week, my labour with Noah began after dinner on Friday, April 4th. We put the boys to bed nice and early at 6pm (they had a long day) and settled in to watch Due Date (irony?). I insisted on something funny over R's current obsession with the show Vikings. Just into the movie I started getting some mild cramping and light contractions. I quietly took mental note of the spacing. 10 minutes. Gave R a heads up in a half joking manner not to get too comfortable on the couch. An hour later they were coming every 6 minutes and I had to get up and walk away from the couch. 

I decided to call the midwife. I may have erred on the more dramatic side when describing the pain/intensity. After arriving at the hospital 10cm last time and having to wait on the midwife and then the back up midwife, I wanted to get to the hospital this time. We arranged to meet at the hospital for 8:30pm. We headed there straight away to be safe and headed to the Tim Horton's in the food court area to grab a coffee for R and a donut for me for after the big event before checking in since we had time to kill.

Once our midwife arrived, we headed to a birthing suite. Since I was 7cm, she called for the back up midwife for the baby. I was pretty happy to have made it to 7cm while still being able to converse easily and even smile at or crack the odd joke. Things were quickly starting to get uncomfortable. She asked if I wanted her to break my water to speed things along since the baby's head was still quite high up she said. I declined, wanting to wait until the other midwife got there since I knew from my past labours that I was pushing rather shortly after having my water broken. She offered to set up a tub I could labour in, or a birthing ball, or suggested I might take a shower. After trying the first two during my labour with Nicholas and feeling worse if anything sitting down, I opted for the shower. R kept me company in the bathroom and the shower felt good. I must have stayed in there for 30 mins. When I hopped out, I got a hospital gown on and parked myself on the toilet to face some more contractions for another 20 minutes or so. The counter pressure from the seat helped a bit through the worst of the contractions and since I felt like I might have to go to the bathroom it seemed like a fitting place to be. Around 10pm I got up and the midwife checked me again. 10cm. We decided to go ahead and break my water. 

Upon breaking my water the midwife felt for Noah's head and realized that it wasn't his head at all, it was his bottom. At the same time, because of the contact, he passed a lot of meconium. I was told to lay back on the bed and not to push just to pant through contractions while she called for the OB to come. They told me he would most likely recommend we go to the operating room for a cesarean. The OB came in and confirmed the breech position with ultrasound. He explained his recommendation would be to go for the emergency cesarean and the midwife asked what I'd like to do. At that point I was frantic trying not to push but my body was pushing anyway. I didn't want to have things explained to me, or to answer a million informed consent and medical history questions (what the heck did I fill out the pre-registration forms for?!) I just wanted to do what was needed to get the baby out safely and quickly. R went with the midwife to get scrubs on. After what seemed like forever, but in actuality was only about 30 minutes, I was in the OR, getting an IV and a spinal block. Once the spinal block was in and I was laid back, I could no longer feel the contractions and felt a wave of calmness settle over me. After a lot of pressure and tugging, the doctor motioned to R the baby was coming out so he could peek over the curtain. Noah was delivered at 10:36pm. Shortly after, R brought him to my head and put his cheek on mine. I felt relieved.