I got up knowing I wouldn’t sleep, and I started to play Spider Solitaire on Stuart’s computer.  The next time I went to the bathroom, I found that little streak of blood in my mucous. This was my “show”. The first time I’ve ever seen this. I was so excited I came and sang it on the Christian UC site.  I returned to playing Spider Solitaire.  I noticed it was snowing.. Hmm, that was in my vision of my birth.

Around 6:00 am I decided to  get some housework done. I did some laundry and some of the pots and pans dishes, and finally I made some chocolate chip/cranraisin muffins.  I knew I was working myself hard, I wanted to get some contractions going.. but nothing was happening .. except I was tiring myself out.  Once the muffins were out of the oven, I retired to bed. It was about 8:00am.

Meanwhile, my kids got up, did the barn chores and found a little black and white speckled lamb had been born. The boys played outside all morning so to not wake Stuart and I.

When I got up at 10, I found quite a bit more blood.  When I’d heard of a “show” I understood it was just a little bit in the mucous, like the streak I’d seen earlier. Now, what I was seeing was 2 wipes worth of blood. Hmm.. I wondered if this was normal, or something to worry about. I posted my question on the Christian UC, but no one seemed to be around, so I posted the same question on a more conservative e-loop. Reminder to self, don’t ask conservative people questions if you don’t want the conservative answer.. which is always “OH MY rush to the Dr. that doesn’t sound normal, you’re worrying us, you should rush to the Dr.”  I knew it wasn’t normal, I’d never seen this before, but the question is.. did it really require me to seek medical attention?  What I know now is, no, it didn’t, it was cervical bleeding, which is considered part of normal, a variation of normal.

Around 6:00 I went to hang out in the bathtub. I took my book with me, but I was so uncomfortable I couldn’t really read much. I was constantly changing positions.  I was getting hot and sleepy, so I called the boys to come in to the bathroom and had Trent read a chapter to me and brothers out of the book we’re reading. After he’d finished, Stuart came in and sat with me. I guess shortly after that I started to moan through my contractions in the bath, but I was sleepy so I moved to the bed for a while.  I wanted to watch Joan of Arcadia with the family, so Stuart moved my pillows and plastic sheet set up to the livingroom and I tried to eat an English muffin with jam, but the contractions were coming on stronger at this point and I was getting grumpy. The boys couldn’t hear the TV, poor Trent I was singing out the contractions in his ear.

Headed back to the bath, the land labour wasn’t working for me.. the buoyancy in the bath and the heat in the water were really helping to ease the pain.  Soon the contractions were coming on about every minute and a half.  I did some of these in the bathtub, and some in the bathroom leaning on the chair. Stuart put a  “Happy Valentines Day” paper plate under the chair so I could see it through the slats of the chair.. this was my focal point for a while.  But OOH I was complaining. I wanted Stuart to call the ambulance and get me to the city. I wanted to back out of the whole deal.  This would have been the perfect moment to get raptured!  I wanted OUT!  I wanted out of the last 9 months!.. but Stuart continued to have confidence in me, continued to say I was doing fine.. and I grumpily kept on going (like I had a choice eh!).

Then came the lull.  I was back in the bath at this point, nearly asleep. I was so tired. I though, well, if my blood pressure is so high, this is the point where I’m going to have that stroke, or that heart attack, or the seizure... I got scared, so I told Stuart to call Morag, my friend midwife in Montreal.  I asked her about what I was feeling inside my body. I felt something smooth, and something bumpy. I was worried that the bumpy part was the umbilical cord coming out first.  She reassured me that if my membranes hadn’t ruptured, that it was very unlikely to be the umbilical cord. She asked me if the head was engaged, to which I couldn’t answer, so I passed the phone back to Stuart.  I had also asked her about this lull. My concern was that this was false labour again, and worried that I was going to have to do all this work over again another day.  She told me this was normal, that it would probably start up again soon, but if it didn’t I could do some stimulation to get it going again.

So Stuart talked to Morag about how dilated I was, and what he was feeling in there. When he got off the phone, he had a much more confident voice, that I was more willing to submit to.  I sent Myles (all the boys at this time had congregated in the bathroom, sitting against the wall to watch, and to moan along with me in my contractions.. it was funny) to get the book that had all the concentric circles to show how big dilation was. Stuart compared what he was feeling to what he saw in the book and declared, “you’re only 4-5 cm”.

The contractions had started up again before Morag had hung up the phone, but before she hung up, she prayed with us and that helped.  So, I was back to contractions about 2 minutes apart and really moaning and singing away.  The volume was getting louder and louder.  Finally I was finished with being in the bath, thinking I was going to have to labour for another number of hours (seeing as I was only 4-5 cm) so I demanded to go back to my bed. (notice some of my wording is strong.. like demanded.. declared etc... believe me, I was feeling strong like this.. I wasn’t feeling flowery and genteel!)  Stuart went and moved the plastic sheet to the bed, and I put a towel down for me to lie on, but Stuart tried to throw one over my back.. ARRGHH I couldn’t climb up on the bed with the thing on me..so I yanked it off.  As I lay down on my side, I told him he’d have to hold up my belly through the contraction.  When it was over, he stuffed a pillow under my belly, and a few between my knees and started to ask what I wanted him to do for the next one. I wanted him to hold up my leg..but that proved to be too uncomfortable for him, so he tried the other side, but this made me on my back.  I couldn’t understand how I could only be 4-5 cm dilated, I really felt I had to push, so I asked him to check again.. and this time, he said... “Nope, you seem to be fully dilated, there’s loads more room, go ahead and push.”

So, next time I started pushing.. but I was on my back. I did this three times, but realized this was going to be futile, so I changed to kneeling on all fours.  One more contraction and I pushed her down the birth canal. The next contraction, I pushed her head through, and then one more to push her body out.  It was 10:00. The boys were there watching her be born.  Stuart caught her in a receiving blanket and asked me what to do. I told him to make sure she was facing down so the mucous could drain out of her mouth, but by the time I’d finished saying it, she was already vocalizing.  I then shifted to a sitting position and Stuart handed her to me. She was grey blue, but starting to pink up in the chest. I was focused on her face, and so because she was still grey blue, I put her back, tummy to tummy with me and rubbed her back  some, but she started to cry.. so I decided I’d just leave her be.  It did take a while for her extremities to pink up, but eventually she did.

So I needed to get out of this pool of muck, Stuart helped me get out of bed, but I didn’t make it far. I collapsed over the big mixing bowl in shock and shivers. Trent ran to get the blankets that were warming in the drier and they wrapped the heat around me.  I was still shivering, but Stuart got up and cleaned off the bed. Trent took the baby from me, and the placenta fell into the bowl, so now separate from the baby, I got back onto the bed, and Trent brought her to me. We checked the cord, and it was white, so we decided to cut the cord at this point just to make it easier for us to move baby and me.  Once Janney was independently mobile, the boys each climbed onto the bed and held her for a short time.  They looked her over and kissed her and looked at all her parts.  I was still shaking and shivering, so I had to get some food and some sleep. We sent the boys to bed and I slept a while, while Stuart finished the clean up and got something to eat and made some calls.

Now there’s so much more to the story, especially the boys reactions.  Rourke broke into tears when he saw her being born. He was  filled with joy and excitement. Trent was so busy doing stuff that he didn’t really have an emotional response.. he was just responsible and observing.  Myles was the most surprising, as from previous experiences, I expected him to be distant emotionally, but he was welling up with tears and he was almost shaking with excitement as he touched her. He even said he didn’t think he would like to hold a baby, but he really did like holding her.  I had to clean up a meconium mess, and Myles wanted to know what she looked like down there, so he had a little look. It was so innocent. 

Another part was Stuart’s reaction. Once her head was born,  he kept telling me to keep going and push her out. I was waiting for a contraction, but he was getting worried because her head was going purple. While he’s been there for all three of the other births, he’d never seen the actual birth, as he’d been caring for me and someone else was taking care of the baby end. This time, he was responsible for it all.. so seeing that little purple head was a little unnerving. So, while he encouraged me to keep pushing, I was waiting for the next contraction, and when it came, out she came.

So now I'm just dealing with the afterbirth pains.. some of which make me question if there's a twin in there! lol  I'm feeling very gassy and lots of abdominal pain, but I don't know if that's because our water tastes off and it might be making us sick.. or if it's related to the birth. Stuart say's he's got tummy troubles too.

We took her to the butchers to have her weighed. She weighed in at 8 pounds 1 once. She’s a little shorter than the boys were. They were all 21+ inches, she’s only 19, but that’s OK.  She’s wetting diapers and passing her meconim.. it’ll be exciting to see the mustard diapers she’ll fill soon.