Baby O'Meara

Thursday August 19th my water broke while putting the other two monkeys to bed. It was a definite leaking going on with most movements. Shane readied our bedroom and after the kids were tucked in I called my midwife to let her know. Using my iPhone I started ‘lapping’ or keeping track of my contraction times using the stop watch app on the iphone. We were pretty excited. Sherry (midwife) and her assistant Tiffanie came over around 9PM and slept on my sofa waiting for the contractions to indicate a baby on its way. That never happened. Instead I continued to have mildly painful and very irregular contractions all night….all day on Friday, Friday night too. Getting about 5 hours of sleep over 48 hours I was a little tired and slowly feeling the anticlimax of that Thursday evening sink in. Saturday morning I met Sherry at Well Rounded Momma (her office) to have a non-stress test done over about 6 contractions. This indicated that baby was doing great and not worried in the least about my stalled labor. I however was NOT enjoying these contractions that ranged anywhere from 1.5 min apart to 15 min apart! I’m not sure if I was just tired or if they were more painful but gradually as the day turned into night I was deflated. I took herbs throughout the couple of days to help my uterus become a bit more consistent and regular with contractions…

Saturday evening around 7:30 I caved…called Sherry and asked if I could surrender. It was a very negative feeling of defeat that washed over me. Should we call Dr. Roberts? Sherry had just gotten herself ready to come back over to my house so she asked me to hold on and she had an idea from another midwife. I was to sit on the birth ball and during my contractions hold my baby belly inward and upward, as if to be pushing the uterus upright allowing Quinn’s head to lie square on top of my cervix. Turned out that this strategy made my contraction more bearable….allowing the baby to actually start moving in the right direction. The term ‘lazy uterus’ was thrown around and the picture in my head was of a beer belly hanging over a belt. All these contractions were not setting Quinn into the proper place to move labor along… what a break through.

So now with two midwives and an assistant, oh and Shane too, I had something to work towards. I was feeling a bit positive again yet at the same time hiding any insecurities from the team. My biggest fear was HOW am I going to do this….I’m soooooo tired!!! My second biggest fear was the memory of the pain (ring of fire) that I had endured when Rory sprinted into the world. Both of my fears were answered in time….had I known the answers early on I would’ve been relieved and probably more patient with a slow laboring process than anxious. Oh well, live and learn.

It was amazing having my ‘three little witches’ helping me in my bedroom prepare for this baby. I think they were just as exhausted as I was waiting for 3 days for her arrival, but they never once showed it. I was so tired that my mind decided that the midwives were like magical women (witches) who knew when my contractions were building before I even did! That is true. The only monitoring device was a small portable Doppler that was administered throughout the evening to ensure Quinn was never in distress. So how do these midwives know so much?!?!

After a few hours more of contractions on the ball, toilet, floor, along with snacks of bananas, applesauce, loads of water….oh and I think we were eating Reeses Pieces…my body was ready for pushing. Even though my cervix was not completely dilating on one side it was time to push Quinn out. A quick shove of the cervix aside helped and hurt a bit. My first fear was answered. Believe it or not I was falling asleep in between my contractions!!! I would awaken and find myself surrounded by smiles feeling like such a horrible host … apologizing for falling asleep LOL. Sherry assured me that my body needs me to get these 5 min cat naps in order to have the strength to push Quinn into the world. So I continued to fall asleep, almost fell off the birthing ball falling asleep! Amazing that my body took care of my first fear in a way I wouldn’t have imagined due to my extremely fast and furious labor with Rory… my body would actually keep the contractions farther apart, make me fall asleep then wake me up as my next contraction was beginning to build. Women are really built with a body that knows what to do in any situation.

So the cervix out of the way and Quinn crowning was time for celebration. Shane had to play it down (the realist he is) and tell me we still had a ways to go…that kinda fueled me with a bit of energy to push and boy did I push through the anger invoked by his estimation (I needed to get that baby out so I could sleep!!) which helped Quinn reach the very edge of the birth canal. I had a resting period between contractions now and I could feel her turning her head – what a crazy sensation, not painful just unreal. So the next 2 contractions I pushed her head out, all the support in the room was now super excited and told me to reach down and feel my baby girl’s head. I wasn’t really interested in anything but pushing the rest out, they wanted me to take a rest but I was ready to keep pushing regardless of contractions! I quickly brushed the side of Quinn’s head with my finger and the pushed super ‘long and strong’ and she was born…hence my second fear answered. It just so happens that the pain or ‘ring of fire’ that I was anxious about never occurred. I was elated…how did she come out without that excruciating pain that makes a woman think “it’s either pain or death…guess we’ll go with pain!” How cool is it that a slow labor, and calm and collected baby girl would equal a pain-free transition into the world. Sure there was a bit of pain but more uncomfortable than painful. I am still enamored with my body and its responses to the situations that arose during this labor. We also found Quinn holding on to the umbilical cord and it wrapped around her shoulder – little cheeky baby was trying to pull off the placenta!

I was filled with adrenaline and love hormones of course, but I was TIRED. What a crazy 3 days….best part was having Shane with me again and both of us experiencing the unexpected long labor. He was so helpful during those days and that evening.

The second best part was having my midwives there – what lovely people to have at a birth. They are the only people in the world who can and should be helping women birth their babies. Midwives LOVE the amazing process of labor, they seem to be one with it. They embrace the sacredness of life with awe and ‘love’ every single baby they help bring into the world. This is definitely not just a ‘job’ or career. It is a way of life. A way of life that should be promoted and accepted in the mainstream society today.  This is my way of honoring my midwife team and all midwives out there loving women, labor, babies and supporting what nature made possible for hundreds of years. Not only did they patiently support me for 3 days, they helped me by holding my hand, feeding me, giving me water to drink, cleaning me, championing my choice to have a homebirth and keeping my spirits high and full of motivation. Took care of my baby Quinn on her arrival, set me up in my bed and were a line of confidence for my husband. Midwives don’t go above and beyond what a doctor or hospital nursing staff does…they actually experience your big moment right alongside you, it’s what anyone ‘delivering’ a baby should do. There is no way that type of service can be done if they had any selfishness in their hearts or distractions of time and money in their heads. They truly love their moms and babies.