My mother (whom I am eternally grateful to for cleaning my house and feeding us for three whole weeks) travelled to London from California a week before my due date. In retrospect this was probably a good move. She had some quality time with her grandson number 1 before the big event and the new life that changed the rest of ours forever. Shaun had several projects due in the week of Charlie's birth and so this time was extra stressful for him, and so having my mom here to "cover" for him was tremendously helpful. Oh, and Shaun was around too.
We worried that Charlie who was due on the 29th February, would be late. I wasn't looking forward to being induced or having a hospital birth or without my mother here to be part of the experience. Thankfully, after a long walk to Rottingdean with my mom, Sebastian and Mimi, my neighbour/ landlady around 4pm on Friday the 2nd March, I began having contractions at 6pm when Shaun arrived home from Uni for the weekend. Around 8pm we called a midwife and just wanted to get our name "on the board". Karrie came at 9pm to check my progress and told us that we weren't ready to have a baby, but that I should carry on relaxing at home and listening to my Hypnobirthing CD.
In January, I had met a woman called Maya Zack, a Hypnobirthing and Sedona Method expert. We connected through a website called SkillSwap. I had hoped to trade yoga for a haircut, but ended up finding Maya. She was very key to my positive birth experience this time around. As the days got close to my mom & Charlie's arrival I had been feeling very anxious and quite frankly, scared. Maya not only gave me some great hypnobirthing techniques but she shared stories of ecstatic births and practiced the Sedona Method with me (a method of releasing... fear, anger - whatever ails you!) and helped restore some of the confidence I had lost when giving birth to Sebastian in 2009. (No one ever tells you how much confidence a woman loses when she becomes a mother for the first time.)
I continued having contractions at a steady rate for hours after Karrie left our house. My mom had pulled out the sofa bed and the plan was to put Seb to sleep there and then she would get in with him, so between 8-9pm (just before Karrie arrived) I was breast feeding Seb to sleep in the front room, while having contractions.
Karrie was very calm and brought a peacefulness with her that made me feel very comfortable. I slightly worried that if she left (which she did) that another midwife would come back later, but no time for thinking - contractions were coming much faster and more intensely than before. My mom and Seb were sleeping. Shaun laid down next to me on the bed and promptly fell asleep. I timed my own contractions using an app on my iPhone. When there were 3 mins apart consistently, I woke Shaun and told him to call the midwife. He stumbled about until he found the house phone to call and made the call. Karrie arrived at 1am and checked me again. She said that I was only 4 centimeters dilated. The plan was that if my waters had not gone by 5.30 am, Karrie would offer to break them for me. I was just so relieved when she said that she would be staying with me and not going back to the hospital. She set up her equipment and paperwork, utilizing the spotlight Shaun had borrowed from Uni and Shaun went and made the teas.
Around 3am when my labour was in full swing, my darling son Sebastian awoke in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar mother that was not his! He screamed and screamed. Nana nor Daddy could calm my boy and so Seb joined me in bed with active labour. I held him and breastfed him while contracting and groaning. It was easier than listening to his screams, believe me. He eventually calmed down and went to read with Daddy and Karrie and Nana.
At 5.15 am the pain was tremendous and I was begging or it all to be over. Karrie did another examination and as she did, my water came away naturally. She suggested I change position for delivery and so I turned from my side to my knees on my bed. I had prepared the bed with a plastic shower curtain from Asda (£1.98) laid beneath the sheets to protect the mattress. Karrie removed the duvet from the bed and asked Shaun to get the towels ready. Each contraction now was excruciating. I did not feel I could survive such intensity. I kept breathing and listening to the CD of positive affirmations in the background on a loop. I eventually had thoughts of strangling the soft lady voice delivering the message. I carried on breathing and riding the waves of pain that overtook my body. Sebastian and Shaun were sitting at the foot of my bed watching The Snowman. My mother was pacing back and forth between my room and the rest of the house. Karrie informed me that she could now see Charlie's head, that he was on his way, but that I needed to relax and wait for the next contraction. My groaning had turned to yelling. "Get him out!" as I rode the penultimate wave. A few moments later with a gush, out came my darling son, Charles. The umbilical cord was loosely double wrapped around his neck; Karrie carefully unwound them and wrapped Charlie in a towel and placed him on the pillow next to me. My body shook and shivered. I was relieved but also very untouchable. Karrie took a photo of me and my family. She then made a path out of spare shower curtains from the bed to the bath. I carefully tiptoed with bloody legs and feet to a tub of warm water. I let four full baths run away before I could see through the water. It was gory. When I left the bathroom, cleaned an warmly dressed, I saw my mom asleep in Seb's room, Seb asleep in my room and Shaun and Charlie asleep on the sofabed.
It was a beautiful sunny day although we didn't leave the house. We stayed home for four days before introducing Charlie to the world. We were visited by excellent midwives daily and I later learned that our midwife Karrie was one of the top midwives at Royal County of Sussex - I was very lucky to have had her. The care and treatment I have received in Brighton has been nothing short of impressive: from health care and the wider community, we are so happy to be here!
