The Birth Story of My Third Baby

Here I share the birth story of my third baby, our first son. This was my first physiological birth after having two induced births. It was such an empowering birth and I can’t wait to relive it by typing these words.

I just shared my fourth birth a couple of weeks ago, and plan to share my first two births in the coming weeks. But today, I will be reliving and writing about my third birth, the birth of my son, Leon.

Leon has now just turned two, but it truly does feel like just yesterday that I gave birth to him. How time flies.

The week before

At precisely 39 weeks pregnant, I began to experience early labour signs. For the whole week, I experienced prodromal labour (where my labour would start and then stop in the early hours of the morning). This was a frustrating process. But I decided to just take each day as it comes and not let it get to my head.

It was two weeks before Christmas, so I kept myself busy baking Christmas cookies, wrapping presents and watching lots of cheesy Christmas movies. They were all good distractions.

The day before

It wasn’t until I was 40 + 1 weeks that my labour truly began. Aash had already taken leave a week earlier, so it was lovely having him home to help with the girls and just be around. We drove the girls to preschool when I began to experience a sharp nerve pain pressing down there that I’d been experiencing for weeks prior. But it was more frequent and persistent this time. Soon after, my contractions began. Like I said, I had been contracting on and off for a week, so I wasn’t getting my hopes up this time.

After we dropped the girls off to preschool, we went to the shops to get a few last Christmas presents. This is where my contractions started becoming more frequent. They weren’t painful at this point, but I started to loosely time them and they were about 10-15 minutes apart. I had downloaded a free contraction timer, so I would start timing them on there when I thought it was time.

We rushed back home and then drove to my last midwife appointment. My midwife felt one of my contractions with her hands while I was on the bed and she suspected I would have baby in the next day or two, which gave me hope. She also encouraged me to visualize my cervix opening through every contraction, which aided me mentally for future contractions. I remember leaving the appointment feeling at peace. That’s all I prayed for.

I spent the rest of the afternoon bouncing on my exercise ball, drinking red raspberry leaf tea and watching The Princess Switch 2 (one of Vanessa Hudgen’s worst performances, sorry). I timed my contractions which were turning out to be irregular but getting stronger as the day went on.

Aash picked up the girls from preschool, we did dinner bed time, which is always a whirlwind after a preschool day, and the girls eventually crashed out sometime after 8pm. Aash and I put on an Aussie B-grade Christmas movie and I put my tens machine on. My contractions were still irregular.

I had little to no sleep all night as my contractions came every 5-10 minutes. I called the hospital at around 3.30am. Because this baby is my third, the midwife said it was my call on whether I wanted to come in or not. She said they would prefer if the contractions were closer together, so I decided to stay home a little longer.

It was about 5.30am when I decided to venture to the hospital. Aash drove us, my mum closely followed and my dad stayed home with the girls.

We arrived at the hospital about 20 minutes later and waited in the birthing suite reception while a midwife prepared a room for us. Of course by this point my contractions had well and truly slowed down! After a whole night of labouring, I was weary and irritated.

The midwife guided us to a birthing suite. I laid on the bed and she monitored the baby’s heart rate for about 10 minutes. My contractions were probably only coming every 15 minutes at this point. The midwife eventually checked my cervix. Only 3cm dilated. She left the ball in my court and said I could either stay here or go home. I decided to get a few moments of rest before disappointingly returning home. Before we left, I went to the toilet and had a bloody show, which was a good sign that things were progressing.

When we returned home, the girls ran to the front door excited to see us. Aash pretended that I had the baby and carried a baby born doll to hand to my dad, who laughed in amusement. That provided some comic relief to our morning.

I had hoped that the girls wouldn’t be around while I laboured that day, but it was just the way it was meant to be. Thankfully, I had Aash and both of my parents around to help.

I went from sleeping to showering, to bouncing on my exercise ball to walking. And this was how my day went.

Aash took the girls to the park for a few hours. In the early afternoon, my mum and I walked a couple of laps around the block. It was a warm summer’s day. Barely a cloud in the sky and no wind to bring any relief.

The walking was a catalyst for my labour, because contractions began picking up and becoming more painful by then. After our walk, I rested. The girls and Aash returned home. They were concerned for me, since I couldn’t completely conceal the pain I was in. I remember Willow laying her hand on mine and asking if I was okay.

A few hours before

It got to about 3pm and I got to an emotional breaking point. I watched Aash and the girls playing with a soccer ball outside and my eyes filled with tears. I was over it. It had been about 29 hours since my labour began the day before. My mum was nearby and wrapped her arms around me. I knew that I was having this baby, but the thought of enduring another sleepless night of labour was overwhelming.

At about 5.30pm, my contractions were still quite irregular but getting more painful, so painful that I couldn’t speak. I remembered this part of labour with my girls well. I called the hospital and received the same kind of response. The decision was up to me. I just wanted the midwife to decide for me! But I should’ve trusted my gut and I didn’t.

It got to about 7pm and my parents’ had our close friends’ Christmas party that night. Our friends only lived down the road, so I encouraged mum to go and told her that we’d call if anything happened. 25 minutes later my waters broke. I was laying on the bed, Aash holding my hand when it happened. We both couldn’t believe it. We turned the covers over and there it was, a big patch of discoloured water.

It was showtime.

Aash immediately called my mum and told her to rush over. He hurriedly ran around the house gathering our things. I was panicked. I knew that this baby was going to come fast.

On the way to the hospital

By the time we got into the car, I said to Aash that I had the urge to push. His face went blank. My mum encouraged me to breathe and I didn’t know whether to get into the car or stay at home and have the baby. I don’t know what on earth we were going to do if we stayed home, so I got into the car.

Aash called the midwife and asked her what to do if we had the baby in the car. She told us to called the ambulance and wait until they get there before doing anything.

Looking back, I subconsciously tried my best efforts to not have our baby in the car. I allowed my body to do what it needed to do, but I believe we could have had him in the car if I wasn’t so afraid.

The hospital ride is 20 minutes from our house. Aash got there in 13 minutes. We arrived at the entrance of emergency. Aash raced in. There was a line. He pushed in and explained to the lady in front that his wife was pushing a baby out and that he needed a wheelchair and a nurse immediately.

It felt like a lifetime of waiting, but I was so relieved when the midwife and nurse came out with a wheelchair. Every movement I made from that moment seemed impossible, but it’s amazing what your body is capable of doing even when in an immense amount of pain. The midwife began asking me questions, to which none I could answer. I was pushing a baby out for goodness sake! Thankfully my mum chimed in and answered the midwife’s thread of questions for me.

They wheeled me to Resus to check if his head was crowning. A team of nurses were waiting for me. The bright lights and crowded room were overwhelming to say the least. It took all of my energy to transfer onto the bed from the wheelchair. The midwife stripped my shorts and underwear off. I lost all sense of dignity at that moment. No head.

They called security to transfer me to the birthing suite, which seemed like an eternity for him to get here. The trip to the birthing suite was probably the most unbearable part of my labour. The intensity of the contractions, the urge to push, the people surrounding my bed, the vibration of the bed moving – it was a lot! One particular thing that I remember is one of the nurses holding my hand the entire time. That meant a lot to me.

When we arrived at the birthing suite, I flopped onto the new bed, got on all fours and immediately began pushing. One push and his head was out. I remember a huge sense of relief washed over me at that moment. Only one or two pushes to go and I would be holding him.

And that’s all it took – one more push and he was out. Our Leon Maverick.

The midwife brought him to me and all I saw was a boy version of Alba! He looked almost just like her when she was born.

Because he had pooed in the womb, he was unresponsive. So unfortunately and without talking me through the process, the midwife cut his cord and took him to the table to try and get him to breathe. I appreciated the need to revive him, but I was heartbroken that we didn’t delay his cord clamping as I had hoped.

Thankfully, he was okay within a minute or so. After 5 minutes, they gave him to me. He latched onto my breast straight away. It’s always my favourite part after birth.

We got the room to ourselves for about an hour, just Aash, Leon and I. And I felt like a superwoman for the third time. And yes, I would do it all over again.