First Time

A Birth Story : Rachel Alexandra

I didn’t know what to expect, the books all say different things and it like a game of rulet. The days leading up Matt and I started to do evening walks around our neighborhood. One night we went to get cheeseburgers from McDonald’s down the street and walked home. We got home and I wanted to walk more, so we did another 10mins. Got home and ready for bed, it was about midnight and I just layed down while Matt watched a show. Suddenly I felt a a pop and like I was going to pee. I stood up right away and shouted to Matt “I think it’s time!”. On my way to the washroom I left a trail of water, which Matt had to clean up for me. Remembering what my midwife told me, I checked the colour and I didn’t have any pain so back to bed with towels and a lovely adult diaper.

About 7am I woke up and decided to have a shower. While in the shower mild contractions started. I laboured in the shower for awhile, then got out and cleaned up and packed. Couldn’t eat much but freezes and stonewheat crackers. I did drink lots of water as well. Called my midwife at 9am but unfortunately she was unavailable so I got transferred to the on call midwife. We scheduled her to come by in the afternoon unless thing progressed. At about 1pm she came by and checked me out, I was only 2cm dilated. She went to her next house calls and was going come back after. It wasn’t too bad, played on my phone and called my mom with updates. At about 3pm the contractions really got intense. We called the midwife and said we were going to head to the hospital. Matt took his sweet time getting ready to go, a debate on if he should bring a suit or not. I won that one and no suit came. Called my mom to meet us at the hospital while Matt drove as slowly as he could, since the driving actually made me feel sick.

At the hospital, we checked in at emergency and got a wheelchair as I could hardly walk with the contractions coming every 2mins. We checked in with labour and delivery and got to freak out the nurse. She was very concerned why we didn’t come into emergency when my water broke. I just told her I followed my midwifes directions. Once my midwife arrived we got a room in L&D, we got the big midwife room with the tub. It was great to labour in water, started in the shower then moved to the tub. At one point I felt a bit different on a contraction and thought to myself “I think it’s time”. I didn’t want to deliver lying on my back and originally started on my knees against the bed in a sitting up position. Because of the positioning on baby this wasn’t working, my midwife suggest to change position and be on my right side and she supported my left leg up. I kept passing out because I would hold my breath. Once I figured out what I was doing it came much easier. Her little head made it’s earth side appearance and the rest just needed one more push and out she came. Straight on to my chest for skin to skin and she was sucking her wrist.

While I did skin to skin the nurses did some measurements and checked her out. We did delayed cord clamping and my midwife cut the cord. My body did go into shock and I was experiencing chills which I just thought I was cold. The nurses gave me gas and air to help with my breathing and calm my body down. After birthing the after birth my midwife stitched me up since I had a second degree tear. They took Rachel to get weighed and checked over and helped clean me up for transfer to the maturity ward.

I also had some food since all I ate all day was stonewheat crackers, freezies and a piece of toast. Rachel also had her first nursing session and was such a natural at it. We guessed she was practicing with her wrist.

The next day. We we’re lucky and had the shared room to ourselves. We had a wonderful nurse that looked after us named Alexandra and loved the randomness that it was our new baby’s middle name. We had a few other nurses when Alex was on break or busy. Only one of the nurses I didn’t like because she tried telling me that Rachel was loosing too much weight and that I needed to give her formula. As a new mother I listened since she scared me, I allowed some formula to be given but now looking back I really wish I said no. Talking with my midwife after, I learned that until 24 hours after birth there is no need for dupplementing if breastfeeding has been established. Even after that if baby is nursing and not showing signs of distress then most likely they are fine. Only the OB or Midwife should be telling a new mother that they need an alternative. Also a breastfeeding consultant can be called in to make sure everything is going well before making a new breastfeeding mother give her baby formula.

We let Alex bath Rachel for the first time. Since that’s really one of the best parts about working on the Maturity ward.

We were sent home about 5pm after all my family came to meet Rachel for the first time. First place we went was Save-On-Foods so we could get some milk. I craved milk durning pregnancy and when breastfeeding.