It was a Tuesday and I was already 10 days overdue. Until then I was having some Braxton-Hicks contractions in the evening, but nothing serious. But that afternoon I felt that things were different.
Noga and Savion were sick with the chickenpox and were feeling very miserable. They were staying over at my mom’s.
I felt that if I would stay there too for too long, my contractions would not get any stronger. My offspring was sick and it was sending the message to my body that now is not the time to give birth. So I went home in the evening and told my parents that there is a good chance that they’d have to take Eran to day camp in the morning.
When I came home, I made sure that all those last minute little things got done. I arranged the laundry, took a check to the neighbors and more things like that. Then I watched the first episode of the new season of The Apprentice UK. Meanwhile the contractions got stronger and I knew it was the real thing.
I decided to sit down on my birth ball a bit, and that was nice. It was around midnight and I called my doula to tell her what’s up.
I was chatting a bit on the internet, timing the contractions. From the timestamp in the chat I noticed that my contractions were already coming every 2-3 minutes are lasted around 1 minute each! That was very encouraging. They were also definitely gradually getting stronger. I told my doula it was tome for her to come.
She got there a little while later, and I was still in a good and chatty mood. The contractions kept coming every few minutes. It didn’t take long before I decided that it was time to go to the hospital. I felt that things picked up really quickly, and I didn’t want to be stuck in a taxi with very strong contractions.
We got at Hadassah Ein Karem at around 2.30 am. Luckily it was very quiet. I got checked, but I was only 1 cm dilated, 80% effaced. What a disappointment!!!
I got hooked up to the monitor to check the heart beat. Thankfully that was all fine. But the weird thing was that the monitor didn’t pick up my contractions at all. Not that that was a problem, the midwife believed me and the important part was the heart beat, not the contractions. But I still found it weird.
When I was lying on that bed, strapped to the monitor, the contractions became really intense, probably because of my position. And because it was it was the middle of the night, I suddenly got very tired so I dozed off in between contractions. Midwife Yana was very nice, and let me rest on the bed a bit longer. When I went to the bathroom, I noticed that I had lost my mucus plug.
Because I was only 1 cm, she was going to let me walk around for a while. She also needed the bed I was in. So we moved all my stuff to the waiting room. We weren’t the only ones there, and it was actually really annoying not to have privacy. My doula suggested that I walk around, but I was too tired. All I could do was sit quietly on a chair. I would close my eyes and nap in between contractions. I figured that sitting up is also an upright position, and it should be beneficial. I actually wanted to sit on a birth ball, but they wouldn’t let me have one in the waiting area.
After a while, Yana checked me again, and I was still only 1 cm! I didn’t understand how that was possible. The contractions were so strong and getting stronger, and it wasn’t my first birth!
Yana said that we should go home, because there was nothing to stay for at the hospital. We just needed to wait for the doctor to sign the discharge papers.
We decided that we were going to try to get a room in the Hadassah Hotel, because it was too far to go all the way home. My doula decided that she was going home because she felt that she wasn’t very helpful yet and she also needed to arrange a babysitter for her kids.
It took a long, long time for the doctor to come, so we were back in the waiting area. This time I couldn’t sit at all, and I was walking around and swaying my hips during contractions. All of a sudden it was so much easier to deal with contractions! I had an AHA-moment; the baby probably wasn’t in an optimal position which is why I wasn’t dilating, and swaying my hips helped move it into the right position.
I was actually longing for the ball and the shower, but pacing up and down the waiting area was all I had.
At 7 am Ely called my parents to let them know that we’re at the hospital, and that they should take Eran to day camp.
Finally finally the doctor was ready to see me. He said, “It’s your 3rd birth and you’re so much overdue and your contractions are so strong, I want to give you a room because it could go fast.”
That’s what I had been thinking all along! He told the new midwife Michal to check me and strip me, and he went over the admission questionnaire with me.
He said that according to the records, midwife Yana had also stripped me when she first checked me. She didn’t tell me that!! And I didn’t notice. Still very much NOT ok!!!! But at that moment I was so happy that they’d give me a room that I didn’t care.
Midwife Michal checked me again, and I was already 4 cm. No need for stripping! I was totally overjoyed. Ely called my doula to come back, it was now 7.30 am. She said that she would come as soon as she could get hold of a babysitter.
When I got to the room, the new midwife Tali gave me a hep lock and a hospital gown. I immediately sat down on the ball and thought I was in heaven! Unfortunately the ball wasn’t comfortable very long.
Tali wanted to put me on the monitor, and we decided I should lie down again.
The baby wasn’t moving enough, so after half an hour Tali said that I should drink something sweet in order to get a good monitor reading. She asked me if I preferred an IV or some tea with sugar. Well, some tea with sugar of course! She went to get it for me. She also told me that if I’d be interested in an epidural, I should know that it would take some time before I could actually get one because they’d have to give me IV fluids first and do a complete blood count. I told her I’m totally not interested, and that I’m a doula myself.
The sweet tea did the trick, and soon I was released from the monitor. Finally time for the shower! It didn’t come a moment too late, because it was becoming very difficult to deal with the contractions on the bed. I couldn’t stand being touched, and the only way I was getting through them was to tune deep into my own world. I felt the need to describe the force of the contractions, and I kept thinking to myself: “This one is totally mind blowing, I’m being knocked off my socks!”
But once I got into the shower, things got a lot easier. The water actually took the pain away. Partly it was the heat – it was numbing the area, and partly it was the force of the water beam on my skin. I felt my contractions low in my abdomen, with 2 ‘epicenters’, one on each side of my uterus. It would have been more helpful if I had 2 shower heads, 1 for each epicenter. But I had to make do with 1.
Tali told me that I could be in the shower for an hour, after that I’d have to come out for another monitor check. I kept praying that I’d be fully dilated before that, because I knew there was no way that I’d be able to handle the contractions on ‘dry land’.
After a while, midwife Jamilla stuck her head around the corner of the bathroom. She said that I had to come out because the doctor wanted to estimate the weight of the fetus. I didn’t do the Glucose Tolerance Test so they didn’t know if I had diabetes, and my last ultrasound was weeks earlier, so they wanted to make sure that the baby wasn’t too big, since I was already 10 days past my due date.
Ely said that the doctor wasn’t in the room yet, so I decided not to come out of the shower until he was actually there. That took a few more minutes.
So I quickly ran out of the shower, not bothering to cover up more than plainly throwing a sheet around me. Quickly I climbed onto the bed. The doctor felt my belly with his hands and said that it’s around 3500 gr, the average. Not too big and not too small. Then, before the next contraction started, I hopped off the bed again and ran back into the shower.
Now the contractions were getting hard to cope with, even with the hot shower aimed right at my belly. This is when my doula finally returned. She kept me company in the bathroom and we were chatting a bit.
Eventually I had about 2 contractions that were really completely mind blowing, and I didn’t know what to do with myself anymore. I was thinking to myself: “These better be transition contractions!!”
The doula noticed it too, and she commented that it was starting to look serious now. If she only knew!
Then there was a big WHOOSH, and my bag of waters broke. I looked down and the water was clear. I told my doula to go tell the midwife that my membranes had ruptured. I was hoping that this was the 10 cm mark.
Midwife Tali came and asked me to come out of the shower to be checked. She wanted to make sure that there was no prolapsed cord. I climbed onto the bed on all fours, and Tali checked me. She said that I was fully dilated! She told me that I could push if I felt the urge, and I immediately started pushing.
Now here is the weird part: I remembered from my previous birth that the doctor asked me if I felt the urge to push, and my mouth answered yes automatically even though I wasn’t really aware of the urge to push. Now the same thing happened, the midwife said I could push and I did, even though I was not aware of the urge to push. But apparently it was there!
I suddenly remembered that there were things on my wishlist for right after the birth, and now was the time to bring it up. I said: “I want you to wait with cutting the cord” and she said “OK!”
I know that ‘waiting’ of theirs, it usually goes like “1-2-3, I waited, *SNIP*” so I told her: “No I mean REALLY wait, until it’s stopped” and she said: “Yes, I wait until it’s stopped!”
Then I asked her not to give me the Pitocin shot, and again she said: “OK!”
I came into the hospital prepared to give a fight about those things, but I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t have to.
Pushing wasn’t anything as easy as I thought it would be. Last time, it was incredibly easy and I was done in about 2 pushes, but this time it was different.
I started off on all fours, but soon I noticed that that wasn’t any good at all. It was agony.
Next I tried side lying, which was only slightly better but it would have to do. My doula asked what she could do for me, since I still couldn’t stand being touched. I told her that I just wanted her to be there for me. So she was standing by the bed, encouraging me. After a few pushes I turned to her and said: “you know, these contractions are just a b*tch!” and that was as far as I got with cursing.
So I was in a lot of discomfort, and actively pushing didn’t bring relief. The midwife was encouraging me and telling me how much progress I was making. At a certain point I thought to myself: “I better push hard now, to get this over with!” and that worked. Midwife Tali was giving progress reports, and she announced that the baby was already crowning. I went on pushing, and I was surprised that I didn’t feel that ring of fire that you always read about, and that I also remember from last time.
Then I felt some kind of *pop* and I thought, ‘that must be the head!’ and indeed, midwife Tali announced that the head was born. I gave another good push and was then surprised that it still took some work from my side to let the body be born. It didn’t slither out like the last few times. This baby was considerably bigger than my other 3! I opened my eyes to see my baby come out of me.
The midwife announced: “It’s a girl!”
I got her on my belly right away. She was screaming!!! She sounded incredibly angry. My mother always tells me that I came out screaming like that too.
I kept her on my naked belly and tried to calm her. It didn’t work. I wanted to let her try to crawl to the breast and latch herself on, but I guess she was too upset. Eventually I helped her find the breast and she finally calmed down. She was hungry!
Only after about an hour did the midwife take her to get weighed, with my permission.
My baby girl was not taken away from me at any point during our hospital stay. Of all my birth wishes, that one was the most important to me and I am very happy that it went exactly the way I wanted.
Labels: birth, birth coach, childbirth, contractions, doula, hospital, jerusalem, midwifery, music, natural birth
Stumble It!
About Me
