When A Child Is Born

I've written up all my own birth stories, but this is the story of the first birth I watched.

My little sister Sooz was 38 weeks pregnant with her third baby when Mum first got ill, and it became very quickly obvious that Mum was not going to be able to be her birth partner this time. So I volunteered, since I'm unphased by blood and gore and Have Had Babies Before.

Naturally, being a Sooz-baby, this one took her sweet time and things eventually got going eleven days after her due date. Sooz decided to go and be in labour round Mum's house, so Mum could be included, while I waited for news. After receiving some text messages that made me do this:

I got a message saying she was ready to go to hospital. So I loitered in the road, awaiting collection, and off we went to the maternity unit.

The maternity unit clearly don't believe women who ring in saying they're in labour, and so we spent some time sitting in the waiting room. Well, we sat: Sooz marched up and down, stopping every couple of minutes for a contraction, and then carried on marching. This is what is known as an active labour, and it is excellent for getting labour established. Sooz, like me, finds contractions much easier to deal with standing or leaning into something, so we had lots of stops for her to cuddle the reception desk or the bookcase.
After about half an hour, we were called to triage and Sooz continued to march until they put her on the monitor. It's hard to know quite what to do with someone in labour. When she was marching, I rubbed her back through contractions, but when she was lying down there wasn't a lot I could do, so I just pathetically stroked her hair until she told me to bloody stop it. She started to need to poo, but since she only felt this when she had a contraction, it was fairly obvious to me that what she really needed was to have a baby. She was not convinced. We sent her beloved partner out because he looked like he was going to faint, and then she suddenly went intro transition. Transition, if you're not aware, is the part of labour when the cervix stops opening and the uterus begins to push, and for some reason it makes women go a bit mental - pleading to go home or trying to leave is very common. Sooz just demanded to have the monitor off because she wanted to march!
So, the midwife had a feel and discovered that Sooz was indeed ready to push and her waters were on the cusp of breaking. She ran off to find a room while Sooz started shrieking about how elated and euphoric she felt because she was going to have a baby. She waddled across the hall to her delivery room, got on the bed, her front waters went splat and began to push before the midwife had even got the computers loaded up. She didn't make a sound aside from a tiny bit of groaning when the baby crowned, and then behold! A baby girl on a tide of water!

We arrived at hospital at around 8:45pm, went to triage at 9:15pm, went to the delivery room at 9:40pm and Evie Jo was born at 9:54pm.

I cut the cord (in one cut, which impressed the midwife) and helped Sooz get her on the boob and then came the difficult delivery of the placenta. She had ragged membranes around the placenta, which isn't unusual in deliveries where the waters break as the baby's born, but they didn't spot it until after she haemorrhaged. Sooz does not appreciate being stitched after delivery, and although she only needed one stitch for a first degree tear, FREAKED OUT at the very IDEA of it. After having the baby without so much as a murmur and no pain relief, she was huffing entonox like a teenager at their first rave. And, betwixt freaking out and crying with pain, she rode the wave of high and SQUEALED about being BOLD. It was fucking hilarious. I cannot tell you how much I regret not having entonox for any of my deliveries.

The doctor sat at the business end, fishing out all of the clots and membranes (squeamish to watch, unbearable to experience), while Sooz alternated shrieks and giggles. Her partner sat with the baby looking bemused and I looked on with interest. They started her on a syntocinon infusion and then finally left her alone to feed the hungry gurl!
I left around 11:30pm, having done my duty and aware that the parents needed to enjoy their new baby alone.

Not before snuggles though

So, how did it compare to my own labours? After all, you would think that being sisters, we would be similar in how labour and delivery worked, and we both have three babies.

Well, first as far as pain management goes, we are similar. Neither of us have had pain relief in labour, preferring to use movement and positioning (I dance and squat, she marches) to deal with the pain. I have been stitched without pain relief each time, although now I kinda regret that, whereas Sooz always has entonox because she hates it. 

Sooz tends to go into labour shortly after having a show, whereas I have never had a normal show, and what I have had has been anything up to ten days before the baby. My labours are much shorter and sharper. Sooz tends to have early labour in the morning, active labour by teatime, baby at bedtime. With each baby, her waters have only properly gone at the end. For me, labour has started with my waters breaking and once the contractions have started, progressed extremely quickly. Now, whether I would have laboured more like Sooz if my waters hadn't broken first each time, I don't know. I'm not going to do it again to find out!

She is much, MUCH quieter than me. It's characteristic for women to be vocal in the final stages of labour: it's one of the main signs midwives look for. Sooz is almost silent, aside from tiny murmurs. I tend to scream and swear and yodel my way through.
Transition is different too. Sooz had a very definite break between transition and beginning to push. I need to push before and then during transition, so I don't get any break. I do experience the feeling of calm once transition has passed, but not for any length of time and certainly no euphoria. Boo.
The biggest difference is probably in terms of the third stage. The WORST stage for me, because my uterus goes into atony and needs rubbing up (such a vile thing) to get the placenta out even with the active management, then I haemorrhage and it's just a bloody mess. Sooz has had two simple third stages, although this one was more complicated because of the retained membrane and untreated anaemia. She did extremely well.

Watching her go through the predictable stages of labour then birth really reminded me of my own experiences. I remembered more viscerally the pain and stinging and waves of contractions and the relief of getting the head out watching her, than I ever could just thinking about it at home. I felt it with her. It's a hell of a thing to watch someone push a baby out, but I really enjoyed it. When everything in our family is tinged with sadness, this was a moment of total joy.

Sooz was an absolute hero; brave and bold and noble Sooz, and Evie is a beautiful little piglet.