Waiting for Labor to Begin
When I was 40 +4 weeks, I was sitting in my kitchen leaning over the table when I felt the pop of my water breaking. This was a surprise since this was earlier than either of my previous babies had been born, and with each of those, my water only broke hours into labor, and well into pushing stages.
I gave my midwife a call and she assured me that they were comfortable with allowing me to go up to 48 hours after water broke before active labor started, so we settled in to wait on contractions to start. I slept well and spent all day Saturday waiting with no significant contractions. Baby was still moving well and seemed happy.
Saturday evening I sent my toddlers to my mom’s house so that I could just rest. I was getting restless with the waiting but that time was so sweet with my husband Michale, and God, praying though some fears that I was facing and surrendering to God’s care and timing in trust of this process.
Finding My Rhythm in Labor
Sunday morning I woke up around five AM and still had no contractions, so I decided to take a very small dose of castor oil and wait about two hours and see if a small push was all it would take to allow my body to kick into gear with contractions. In a very short time I started contracting, and within two hours I was fully in active labor.
I wandered between my kitchen and bathroom, moving with the contractions. A moment which stands out to me is at one point when they felt more and more intense, I was leaning over my kitchen counter pulling up onto my tiptoes trying to stretch away from the intensity. I was saying, “No, no” as the contractions intensified and Michael looked at me and said, “How about you try saying “yes.” It was just the coaching I needed to again surrender to the process and allow my mental state to work with my body instead of fighting against it.
Using Positioning to Help Labor Progress
Michael suggested I try the side-lying release again, so we moved to the edge of our bed to labor in that position. He helped me through a few contractions on one side and then moved to the other side. I laid on my side with my top leg hanging off the edge of the bed into the stretch. Then we moved to the first side again because we could see that the second side had already relaxed more deeply.
At some point in the process I felt a distinct shift in the way my contractions felt. Suddenly I found myself leaning into the pressure of them instead of trying to pull away. I told my husband that I would like to head to the birth center so that I could use the birth tub for labor help. He called the midwife and let her know we would head there but that there wasn’t any hurry. We had checked my dilation and I was around seven centimeters, but with both my previous labors I spent hours getting from seven to complete so we assumed there was still plenty of time.
An Unexpectedly Fast Delivery
Michael went to pull the car to the front door and prepare it so I could lie in the back during the twenty minute drive to the center and I went to empty my bladder one more time. Contractions were every 5-7 minutes through this whole process. While I was sitting on the toilet I decided to do a cervical check since I could reach my own cervix in that position. I found a slightly swollen anterior cervical lip and I groaned. With my first labor I had the same thing and it took an agonizing hour of laboring in an inversion and a few topical applications of ice and oils to lessen the pressure of baby’s head so the swelling could diminish. It was not an experience I wished to repeat.
After I finished on the toilet I decided to try a couple contractions on the bathroom floor on my knees with my arms and chest on the floor. After the second contraction I stood up to walk to the car and immediately I felt my baby do a major downward movement.
I yelled at my husband that the baby was coming right now! He said I should quickly get into the car because neither of us realized that right now meant only one more contraction. I hurried through the house, grabbing a robe on the way out the door, and made it out and around the back of the car before the next contraction hit.
Michael was laying a chux pad in the car for me as I came around, and in just a few seconds the fetal ejection reflex fully kicked in. I removed my underwear and squatted in the grass just in time to catch my little girl’s head with my own hands. By the time Michael turned around, her head was already born and in a few more seconds the rest of her body followed.
Welcoming Our Baby Girl
We both were in complete shock for a moment, only a few minutes earlier we thought we probably had a few hours and now here was our baby girl in my arms! Michael threw my robe to cover baby from the chill of the early October air, and made another quick call to the midwife to let her know that baby was here and I was bleeding. He later checked the time and it was only eleven minutes from the first call to the midwife until the second call, and in that time I had around three contractions.
I had bleeding with both my previous births and knew I needed to deliver the placenta before it would slow down. So I got in the back of the car on the floor and coached Michael through delivering the placenta, reaching down and showing him how to put just the right amount of tension on the cord to deliver the placenta. After we delivered the placenta, he then started driving to the birth center while I lay in the back, holding my baby on my chest with one hand and doing fundal massage with the other to control the bleeding.
Our wonderful midwife was waiting for us at the birth center by the time we got there. Michael scooped both the baby and I up and carried us in to a bed where we snuggled under cozy covers, warming up after the surprising birth and enjoying a few golden hours of bonding and getting breastfeeding established before we headed home again.
The Difference Positioning Can Make
Although having a baby in my front yard was not my plan, it seems that the positions we tried, such as the side-lying release for aligning my pelvic floor both before and during labor, the brief inversion when I felt the cervical lip, and all the movement throughout the house while in labor, all converged to make this a smooth delivery, and to bring baby girl to us more quickly and with less complications than either of her previous siblings!
