By Megan
The birth of my son Tamlyn was the beginning of the greatest experience of love in my life.
I birthed Tamlyn at home. I knew I needed a good midwife, so at seven months pregnant I chose Sarah, because of her strength, experience and reputation. I read up and practised active birth positions and went to pregnancy support meetings. My midwife gave me two very gentle rebirthing sessions to clear up any issues I might have from my own birth and generally I felt happy, relaxed and confident; she predicted a quick easy labour. But overall I felt the birth itself would pale into insignificance as compared to the transition of being a full-time mother of a vulnerable new little being. Although in some ways this is true, the birth was a very emotional experience, which has taken almost seven months to integrate.
As well as my midwife, my support people were Tamlyn’s father Sam, my sister, two friends, Yeroa and Susan, plus Katrina Folkwell as my photographer and support person. We had a birthing pool set up and hoped for a water birth though I had heard that babies often ended up being born out of the water even with the best laid plans. Sam and I weren’t a couple anymore – we were actually breaking up at the time we conceived. By the time I found I was pregnant at six weeks, he was already in a new relationship. Even though we didn’t want to be together, we both wanted the child and agreed to co-parent.
I was theoretically due on July 9th. As I had to take my baby on tour to perform in Sydney by August 17th, I took a Causticaum 30, a homeopathic remedy to gently encourage labour and proceeded to have period-like pains all night. About 7 am my waters broke, and just as everyone had said, it feels surprisingly similar to wetting yourself, except the fluid is clear and salty.
I also really wanted my sister present for the birth but at this stage she was tied up with family business. I had pre-labour on and off that day, starting from 7 am, the day of the longest full moon eclipse in a hundred years. Yeroa went and got Sam from the campground where he was staying and Susan, Sam, Yeroa and I hung out that night. We nibbled on chocolate and watched a movie in between watching the eclipse with binoculars. Yeroa rang my midwife and she reassured him that it could be ages as there were no regular contractions yet. The contractions eased then stopped for the night so I got a good night’s sleep.
The next morning I awoke early and Sam and I went for a walk – a very slow lumbering walk to the beach. When we arrived back home at 10.40 am my sister rang to say she was finally on her way. So that’s all I was really waiting for, 20 minutes later I went into labour.
Labour got pretty intense fairly fast and I was having contractions three to five minutes. At one stage I had a 40 minute session where I was having full on contractions with only a minute and a half between. We thought the baby was coming fast. It wasn’t a fun feeling. Labour definitely felt like the right word! My support people called my midwife around 4 pm and asked her to come over but she felt it was too early.
Too early? I’d just spent five hours in intense pain and I certainly wasn’t coping serenely so I screamed down the phone at her to ‘get here now!’ I guess that wasn’t such a great start. Sarah came and found me only three cm dilated, which felt pretty disappointing to me. Contractions followed steadily but by 8 pm I was only four cm and by 10.40 pm, only five cm!
My midwife told me to walk downstairs and walk outside for a while doing supported squats for each contraction. I pleaded miserably that I couldn’t possibly walk downstairs, but with lots of patient coaxing the team got me going.
Yeroa supported me under one arm, Susie under the other and Katrina walked backwards in front of me making eye contact. We walked to the end of the street under the full moon, stopping every three or four paces for a contraction and squatting down for each. Each time I would think, ‘I’ll breathe really low and stay calm.’ But each time I panicked a little with the pain and wasn’t breathing as low as I thought. It was my coaches that got me through. If I hadn’t had those three and someone had offered me painkiller drugs, I would have accepted. But they were so there for me – so loving, focused and compassionate. In 40 minutes I had dilated the rest of the five cm and Sarah announced I was now fully dilated. We thought the baby would be arriving soon. ‘Wow,’ I hooted, ‘That’s the first good news I’ve heard in 12 hours!’
‘You can get into the pool now’, said Sarah. ‘That’s the second bit of good news,’ I sighed.
Relieved and exhilarated I sank gratefully into the warm pool. Gosh, it felt soothing! The contractions were much, much easier to bear. On one hand, I felt like a queen and thought the baby would just glide out easily. On the other hand, I felt nervous about meeting the baby and starting our new life together. What if I had a difficult child? What if it cried a lot or never slept? How would I cope as a single parent? What if we had a personality clash…? A powerful new phase of my life was dawning and part of me irrationally wanted to put off the inevitable even though I so strongly did want this child.
I reached down to feel my baby’s head, just a few centimetres inside me with my fingers, but all I could feel was soft velvety skin. I couldn’t feel the skull. Now the idea that a real baby was in there, was even harder to grasp. Later, when I saw my baby’s birth photos, I realised Tamlyn’s head felt like that because his scalp was so bunched up that it made a ridge of scalp.
I’d heard that not all births entail loads of pushing, so I wasn’t really pushing with all my force. My friend Susan got into the pool with me; she was amazing; really gentle and totally present. I began stimulating my clitoris as a method of pain control. It didn’t feel sexy, it just helped with the pain. But after a few hours of doing this, a wonderful bubbly feeling washed over me. ‘Ooh, what’s that?’ I said out loud and then I laughed and laughed as it dawned on me I was having an orgasm! Everyone in the room laughed with me. I’d heard that very occasionally, some women have orgasmic births but I didn’t really think it could happen to me. I’d visualised an idyllic experience where the entire birth process felt orgasmic but, as it happened, this was just a one off thing in between the waves of pain.
It had been four hours since I was fully dilated and my midwife started to get concerned that the baby could get distressed if we didn’t get him out soon. By this point the birth had accidentally become a bit of a spectacle. My six support people, expecting the birth to be imminent, were all sitting around the pool waiting for The Big Event. Then Yeroa invited my housemate in and I really lost my focus. It was my midwife who pointed out that we needed to ask most people to leave including the baby’s father Sam. It was a hard call, as everyone had worked so hard and this was the big moment.
Katrina stayed to take photos, which was fine by me because she was like a second midwife. Yeroa stayed, as we needed his strength for supported squats. He stayed instead of Sam because Sam was very nervous and Yeroa was very calm and steady. I really needed calm and steady.
Katrina and Sarah got me out of the pool doing supported squats with Yeroa as support.
That’s when I was flooded with the feeling that I wasn’t doing it right, that I wasn’t good enough, strong enough, and tough enough. My midwife had made little jokes about me being a Byron Bay princess and some other dry jokes. In my extremely vulnerable state I felt disempowered. In hindsight, I realise I probably was being a bit of a drama queen and quite stroppy at times too, resisting a few things she suggested because it all seemed intolerably painful. But wallowing in self-criticism didn’t help me at all.
So I continued to do supported squats with Yeroa’s help and just about every active labour position known to woman. Then I got back into the pool, but still no go. Sarah told me that we would have to go to hospital soon if we didn’t get that baby out. ‘Oh dear! Oh dear!’ I heard myself whine pathetically, miserably, just like my mother when she feels hopeless and desperate. I felt like a total failure, how could I be such a wuss that I needed to be threatened with hospital to get my baby out! It dawned on me to tell my midwife that I felt the baby was pressing hard against my side internal hip bones (ischeal) and found it hard to get its head past that spot. She checked me and said there was enough room, but she got me duck walking to open my hips sideways. I found this excruciating.
She then suggested a position she rarely recommended, lying on the bed on my side with my top leg really high. Suddenly, all my pushing started to work, and after the baby’s head crowning for ages and ages, Tamlyn actually started to emerge! I pushed a few times lying down and then got up in the supported squat again. My fanny really burned at that point. Katrina encouraged me to brave the pain because the baby was nearly there, so after pleading for more oil on my perineum and shrieking ‘My fanny hurts! I just want it fucking out!’ A few more pushes and Tamlyn suddenly came flying out – head, shoulders and body all in one go! Thankfully, Sarah caught him. He was pink and relaxed and we let him just lay on the bed where he’d landed for a bit. He was so fine! A healthy little boy.
Katrina ran down and told Sam to come up. As he bounded up the stairs he heard Tamlyn’s first cry mixed in the wind with the sound of the waves and wasn’t sure which was which. It was 4.45 am 18th July. I’d had pre-labour on and off for 16 hours, 12 hours of first stage labour and six hours of second stage.
At first I stood above Tamlyn stunned. There was my baby, finally, after so long of just imagining him. The seconds that passed as I waited to see his face properly were eternal. Even though I was really curious, I didn’t exactly feel a big rush of emotion yet. At that point, I felt overwhelmed by relief, and my brain was ticking over trying to take it all in.
It felt good when Sam came up and we lay our hands on our baby for the first time and spoke to him lovingly. My midwife wiped him and handed him to me to nurse. He didn’t quite manage to feed but it was a magic moment. Sam and I felt so proud, so totally engaged in this little being that we had brought through. In that moment a very strong bond was forged and six weeks later we got back together in a loving relationship.
Our new life had begun!
This is an excerpt from Katrina Folkwell’s book The First Breath that is scheduled to be published pending funding. Katrina is a mother of two and photographer who resides in Byron Bay.
Published in byronchild/Kindred, Issue 7
