A Recap of January 29 from the Birth Partner

I saw it all happen, and I was under no drugs, intense pain, or hormone surges so my memory is very vivid. It was one of those days that will stand out in my whole life because it was completely full of emotions and uncertainty. I may sound over dramatic, but I'm trying to be truthful. Hey, this is a blog after all, not just a photo album.

Looking back Susan and I know that her contractions began around 9:30pm on Wednesday, January 28. We went for a walk to the library. I didn't want to get any library fines because I was gone for a few days giving birth. The walk was very uncharacteristically slow for Sue. She had to stop every 10 minutes and crouch down because the abdominal cramps were very strong. I was happy, because I knew this was a warning that the baby was coming closer to come and I was anxious for his arrival. But I still figured we had until tomorrow at least before we would head to the birth center.

When we arrived home the pains became much stronger. When they came Sue couldn't do much. I was waiting for this moment to start timing the contractions. It was a little hard to just watch her in pain and all I could do was watch the clock, but from my readings this was an important role. We called a midwife at the birth center and they gave Sue some suggestions for dealing with the pain and told her to keep in touch with them as to how things progressed. Sue hadn't felt any labor pains up to this point so it's not like the baby would just come all at once! Our bag to take to the birth center wasn't even fully packed yet. Sue told me to go to bed and get some rest because I will probably need it.
Sue woke me up at 3am. She was in extreme pain on the floor trying to find the best positions to cope with each contraction. I timed them again and they were coming every 5 minutes and lasting for about one minute. We called the birth center and they said we better come. Just then Sue's bag of waters broke. Now I knew we had to move, but still I had to finish packing things up and help get Sue dressed in between contractions (not easy). When we got in the car it was the only time I've ever seen Sue not put her seat belt on, but I wasn't going to argue with her.

When we arrived at the birth center the midwife checked her immediately and in
a surprised kind of way said you are 9cm dilated! We knew what that meant, once the cervix reaches 10 cm it's fully open and the baby is ready to come out. They brought us quickly into the birthing room and the pushing phase of labor began.

Over the next eight hours Sue tried many different positions. Laying on the bed, sideways on the bed, on hands and knees, in the jacuzzi, on the birthing stool, squatting, leaning on the birthing ball. The midwifes and nurses were coaching her and I was helping to support her, physically and emotionally. Sue pushed hard with all her muscles. I could definitely see she was in pain, but I was very proud of her because she was trying so hard and working through the pain. She was pushing so hard that still today there are blood vessels that burst on her face and eyes.

Then we came to small problem. Sue had been pushing and pushing and the baby should have been out by now. The baby was not stressed, (meaning his heart beat was fine), but the midwives were just trying to figure out what was holding the baby back. They could feel the baby's head, it was only about 2-3 inches away from appearing, but it wasn't making any progress. This was disheartening for Sue, because she was pushing through so much pain for so long to be able to see her new baby.

From my point of view it was scary and impressive to see Sue go through this. I could see the pain she was experiencing. But Sue was so determined to see her new baby come out of her and hold it immediatelythat she wasn't going to let anything stop her. And she also wanted to experience it naturally, without being numbed. I could see her getting frustrated that all her hard work wasn't amounting to any baby's head sticking out. But she never complained. She just asked the midwives what she could do, no matter what the pain, to do a better job. They were amazed at her stamina. At one point that had to force her to rest for about one hour and gave her something so she could rest and gain some more energy.

I had no time to make any phone calls. I had even brought a book to glance through because I had no idea what this was going to be like. On every push I was always physically helping her. Often I was pushing with all my strength on her leg to keep it down. Other times I was helping to support her when she was squatting or keeping her head above water in the jacuzzi.

Finally, around 3m, the midwives said we had to go to the hospital and have a c-section. They had talked with the doctor there, and the hospital were ready and waiting for us. It would only be risky to keep on pushing. Up to this point the vital signs of Sue and the baby were perfectly fine, but it didn't seem like the baby was going to come out the usual way. This was very scary for me. I was realy worried for Sue's safety. I knew that sometimes women did die during child birth and now it seemed like everything was going wrong. My dear wife was on a stretcher and we were headed to the hospital. In my mind this meant she was in trouble. But now, after the tension of the moment is over, I understand her operation was pretty normal and we are grateful we had this option to give us a healthy baby and mom. Before c-sections, there would have been a great chance that Sue and the baby would die in a situation like this.

Because Sue had to recover from her serious abdominal surgery, we stayed in the hospital for 3 days. We came home on Sunday evening. This turned out to be such an unexpected blessing. We received such good care from the various nurses and lactation consultants. We learned many of the basic skills of having a newborn such as: breastfeeding, diaper changing, swaddling, analyzing a babies poop, etc. It was also a bonding time for our new family. In our tiny little room, the only thing we would do is was spend time with little Mathieu. There were no distractions of work, TV, internet, cleaning dishes, etc. It was a perfect start to our new family of three.