Well I have been psyching myself up, and doing a bit of umming and ahhhing, about writing this for the past 10 1/2 months. Firstly I felt that sharing my birth story was too personal. Secondly that no-one really cared. And third that it has so much emotion attached to it I just couldn’t muster the energy to type it all out. But here I am, having come to the conclusion in my mind that when I was pregnant I LOVED (almost obsessed) over listening to, and reading about, others positive birth stories so I feel it is my duty to put another one out into the ether. Also my dear little boy has (finally) started sleeping through the night so I have slightly more energy. This story is long and some may find it occasionally graphic, take what you like from it and leave the rest.

Sunny Spencer Ryan ~ 31th August 2019 4:08am

My waters broke at around 6pm, in a gush that announced our little boys imminent arrival, at around 42 weeks gestation. I was very excited. I had been feeling very large, tired and ready to meet this little boy who had been floating inside me for what felt like forever. It was the coolest thing ever having your waters break/membranes rupture. It never happened the first time around so I was in awe when I felt a pop, then had a rush of warm liquid flow down my legs and all over my comfy tracksuit pants. I had been just laying around with my daughter, after having the most wonderful day with her. It was the Gold Coast show day. A public holiday that just feels like such a bonus as it’s so very unnecessary, but who doesn’t love a day off for nothing?! We had been for a big walk, made up our own face scrub and masks, given ourselves mini pedicures and just enjoyed being in each others company, as was our way. So when she heard my little yelp, followed by ‘My waters have broken! Grab a towel!’ she was pretty shocked. This was followed by me pulling down my pants to pop a towel between my legs to catch some of said water, when my mucous plug came out. Again, I thought this was the coolest thing ever! I wanted to share my excitement of this with her, but as she was holding the dog away from the copious amount of fluid coming out of me she wasn’t so enthralled, not sure why?! After I had cleaned everything up I lay down again and reassured her that it could still be a while away. Lotus (my daughter, 9) was really nervous. She doesn’t like the unknown. She didn’t want to be woken in the middle of the night to be taken to my sisters house, she wanted to go straight away, but I still held out a little hope that she would want to be there for the birth. We went to bed and read a book (‘The big sister’ a Billie B Brown book that will always remind me of this divine moment in time with my first baby) then she went to sleep.

At about 8pm I knew I was going to have this baby tonight. I had started feeling gentle surges (contractions) and intuitively knew they were going to grow. My husband and I got in to bed and I put on some music hoping to get some sleep. I really wanted him to sleep as I knew that while I would have all the wonderful hormones to get me through the night, he needed some rest so he could support me. Neither of us slept, but we rested, I practised breathing deep and slow and time slipped by calmly but quickly. At around 10pm we decided now was the time, I couldn’t avoid it any longer, this baby was coming soonish and I had to accept that our daughter didn’t want to be there for this birth, he should take her to my sisters house. So off they went, my little girl with her little bag packed, happy and excited to spend the night over at her cousins house, me crying and devastated that the next time I saw her she wouldn’t be my only child. I found it really confronting expecting my second baby. I just didn’t know if I could love the next one as much as my first. In fact I thought there was no way I could.

As they drove out the driveway, at around 10:30pm, shit started to get real. I was now having sensations of pulling around my abdomen, hips and pelvis pretty regularly, I hadn’t timed anything yet as I was still pretty content and not wanting to get too far ahead of myself. This was pretty much my attitude to pregnancy, birthing and mothering from the moment I thought we may be having number two. Just cruise. Don’t rush to tell anyone anything. While we had said it was a possibility we hadn’t actually confirmed to Lotus that we were pregnant until the 12 week scan. I didn’t even go to the Doctor until I was 9/10 weeks along. So this played out in the birth. When my first baby was safe and sound I headed down to my studio sanctuary and got on my mat to breath and move a little. This was what I always envisioned. Me in my space doing my thing until the very last minute. I put on the music of my teacher, got on my hands and knees and moved. I felt like I was only like this for about 10 minutes but it turned out I was there for about an hour and a half, with my darling husband upstairs messaging me to see how I was going, and begging me to time the contractions. I had rung my midwife early in the evening to say that my waters had broken, only to be told that (of course) my midwife was off that night. This was a pretty big blow to my confidence, but I got over it relatively quickly knowing that really the only person I needed was my husband. Whilst in my studio, timing my contractions, we discovered they were coming about every 2-3 minutes and lasting around 45 seconds. To this my husband said I should call the midwife. I didn’t want to yet though. I’m not sure why. It was a mixture of not wanting to leave my space and not wanting to disturb her before I really needed to, particularly seeing as it was the middle of the night. But after a little while the sensations were getting very intense and I felt the need to be in the birth centre. This was a surprise to me as I had really wanted a home birth, thought maybe I could ‘accidentally’ not make it to the hospital/birth centre, but when push came to shove (pardon the pun!) all I wanted to do was be in a place where I knew there were people around who knew what they were doing when it came to birth.

I rang the midwife at about 12am and said I needed to come in, she was very relaxed and asked if I was sure. I hung up and had a few moments hesitation, it’s so hard to know when to go. I definitely didn’t want to get there too early, I wanted to be at home, I just knew that it was feeling close. I was having a lot of downward pressure, and about every 3rd contraction was very strong. So I made the call. I think this is what they really want, to force you/the woman to take charge and tell them when it’s time. We jumped in the car, me hugging my beloved bolster, for the dreaded drive to the hospital, about 20 minutes away with no traffic. Luckily it was almost 1am so there was absolutely no traffic. The drive wasn’t as bad as I anticipated, I hugged my bolster, breathed deeply through the contractions, and listened to my music, all while my husband gave me the peace and quiet I craved.

We arrived at the hospital at about 1am, and I felt as though this baby was going to come out at any minute. It was a bit shocking as with Lotus I was pretty chilled, walking into the hospital and not yet making the sounds of birth, though I was 9cm dilated. With this birth I was making some incredibly dramatic sounds, feeling like this little boys head was right there and that this baby was coming….NOW. Hubby grabbed a wheelchair, to which I said no way I am I getting in a wheelchair, which lasted all of 2 minutes until the next massive surge, when I got in the wheelchair and told him to get me into the birthing suit quickly! We both felt this was happening very fast.

When we got into the birth suit the midwife was very relaxed, told me to jump in the shower while she finished running the bath, no rush, no stress. In retrospect this was such a wonderful energy to arrive to – the room was dark, there was absolutely no-one else around, candles were lit, water running and oils burning. My midwife was so incredibly calm and in control I mirrored this image. Though at the time I was wondering why the hell she wasn’t taking me seriously, I had a baby about to come out of my vagina, at any second, there should be some emergency measures being taken! Once the bath was full I jumped in, heaven. Absolute bliss. I felt my entire body relax and melt into the warmth and comfort. And here I stayed. I breathed, moved a little, listened to music, chatted to my hubby, and occasionally wondered where the midwife was. It was perfect. It was intense. It felt as though it was just my husband and I in our own little birthing bubble.

After about 2hrs of this my midwife got me out of the bath to move around a little as we weren’t sure how far dilated I was, and were wondering if we should check as I was feeling such intense downward pressure. For about 2 1/2hrs I felt like I needed, and was ready, to push. Like an intense wave of energy was surging through me forcing every muscle in my body to push down. But I wasn’t dilated fully yet. Getting out of the bath was a mammoth effort, all about timing, but I made it. I lay on the bed and let the midwife (Vanessa) do an internal, but said I didn’t want to know how far dilated I was. Then changed my mind. Then said no don’t tell me. Then made her say it. I was 7-8cm. I felt a bit devastated by this, simply because I had made it to 9cm at home with Lotus, but Vanessa was amazing at talking me through this, again with her way being calm and nonplussed about it all. She did some amazing techniques where she rocked my hips and gave my lower back a bit of a rub, and showed my husband how to do the same. It seems that I turn into a massive bitch for the 1-2 minutes I am contracting and I don’t want to be touched, or spoken to, by my darling man, or anyone. Then I return to myself. So I would be cuddling my hubby, telling him I love him, holding his hand, only to start a contraction without him knowing, then have to tell him to leave me alone. Luckily he knows me all too well and didn’t take this at all personally. So when he tried to do the hip shaking/massage thing that I had loved so much when Vanessa did it I started having another surge and told him not to touch me, in no uncertain terms.

At about 3:30am, again with divine timing, I made my way back into the sanctuary of the tub and languished a little here. I knew it wasn’t long. I had made my way through some massive hurdles of self doubt towards a feeling of knowing I could do this. My husband had been able to talk me through some issues that were coming up for me, in a way only he can, and this brought me to a place of readiness. I had a moment of feeling like every single woman who had ever birthed was standing with me. I knew I was strong, centred myself through deep breathing and allowed myself to soften completely into the flow of birth. It was magic. I told my husband to change the music, something in me was getting everything lined up. All of a sudden I heard another voice in the room, Vanessa had called the second midwife in as there needs to be two in the room when baby is born. I started to gently push, and started to feel our little boys head emerging. I had a moment were it felt very intense, the start of a burning sensation, when Vanessa told me to stop pushing for a moment and I was able to just rest here in this interim, before the next contraction when I pushed his head out. This allowed my vagina to soften and expand enough to avoid any tearing. And then everything stopped, it felt like forever but must have only been a minute or two. I heard the ‘other voice’ of the second midwife saying ‘Let her catch her baby’ and next thing I knew he slipped out and I reached through my legs to pick up our baby and bring him to my chest. I cannot put in to words this moment. 4:09am, Sunny Spencer Ryan was born into the world, in the water, to the song ‘Higher Love’ which was the song that was played at my fathers funeral.

The moment….in all it’s amazing glory, birth.

We were taken out of the bath pretty quickly as I was at risk of haemorrhaging, but it was all very relaxed, very quiet, very peaceful. I really wanted to birth the placenta without any intervention as I didn’t get the chance to do this with my daughter (I will get to her birth story in a later post…eventually) so I lay with the newest addition to our family on my chest and relaxed while we waited. He attached to my breast straight away which brought on many tears. Lotus never attached properly, I had a lot of trouble feeding her, having to give up when she was 8 weeks old due to post-natal depression, so to have this little one attach so quickly, so naturally, felt like the greatest hurdle had already been overcome. After about half an hour I started to bleed a lot, which was a sign the placenta was on it’s way, so Vanessa got me off the bed and I literally stood up and birthed the placenta straight into a kidney dish. It couldn’t have been easier, or more perfect, if I have written the story myself.

My husband, our little boy and I lay in the dark quiet room for about another hour, then we were so very ready to go. We just wanted to get back to our daughter, to complete the circle. I was having my placenta encapsulated so we waited for Lou (from Yogi tree, wonderful, wonderful could not recommend her more highly) to come and collect the placenta, then we were off. By 7:30am we were back in the car on the way to pick up Lotus. And our family went from three to four.

Picking up our darling girl, completing the circle.