Tuesday, July 3, 2012

The Homebirth of Georgina Kay Part 2

** if you missed Part One, click here**

By 5:30pm the contractions were coming regularly, not too strong but consistent so we started timing them. By 6:30 they were coming every 3-4 minutes and lasting nearly a minute. We paged our midwife and started filling up the tub! Charlotte and her student midwife Helen arrived by 7pm and another internal exam confirmed I was 8.5 cm. My secondary midwife Beth was called to come out and arrived shortly after. I felt great, my contractions were getting stronger but totally manageable. I was present, in the moment and able to chat with Guy and my wonderful midwives the entire time. With Oliver's labour I felt best on all fours rocking back and forth throughout the contraction.... actually I was pretty much on all fours throughout my entire labour with him and totally silent, I hardly spoke at all. But this time I felt best standing upright and moving with the contraction like a wave, I kept moving and walking around and sipped on hot water with lemon and honey (since I was still recovering from my cold). I also enjoyed a couple of my birthing staples (raspberry juice bars from M &M's) to cool me down, seriously I love these juice bars.... I stretched my back and calf muscles with the Aligned and Well exercises which felt amazing and of course Guy was there to massage my lower back through the contraction when I needed him to. But mostly I just walked around from room to room, made my hot water and lemon drinks at my leisure, listened to the birthing playlist I made and happily took in the moments leading up to the arrival of our little babe. Which I must say are (I think) a lot easier to do in your own environment.

The tub took some time to fill up since the connector didn't fit our faucet, we had to heat up pots on the stove instead of just using the tap. By 9 pm the tub was ready for me to get in and I was ready to get in! With Oliver, I felt the tub slowed my labour down and I was only in for about 20 minutes. This time it sped things up, I had only been in for about 30 minutes or so when I started feeling like pushing with each contraction. I decided to get out of the tub and get onto the mattress I set up in the kitchen. (Yes I birthed both my kids in the kitchen!) I laid on my back for another very quick internal exam , which confirmed it was go time. It was 9:37 when I got out of the tub and with 3 or maybe 4 pushes Georgina Kay was born at 9:52 pm. I was kneeling on the mattress but upright this time and gravity really did it's thing! She came out so fast, there was no head, then shoulder then other shoulder business. She came barreling out like a bullet!
 I could hear Charlotte saying "hear comes your bab.....it's here!" I scooped her up, had a quick look
and announced to everyone that we had a GIRL.

Within 3 minutes of her entering the world, she latched on like a pro! Georgina was so alert, eyes open and ready to be snuggled my her Mama. Total Perfection. We waited for the cord to stop pulsing before clamping it and this time Guy was ready to cut the cord (he didn't cut it with Oliver). The placenta was a little trickier this time, the cord detached and it wasn't as easy to deliver as it had been with Oliver. Charlotte helped slowly guide it out, careful to keep it in tact as she new I wanted to have it encapsulated (more on that later). A little maneuvering on both our parts and voila the placenta was out! It was much smaller than Oliver's which I thought was amazing and actually I never thought about placentas coming in such a variety of sizes... but they certainly do!

After the placenta was delivered, I just laid back, nursed and snuggled my sweet new baby and chatted happily with my midwives! I felt very different from how I did at Oliver's birth. With him I was totally exhausted and felt like I was on another planet while labouring and delivering him, a very happy planet of course but a foggy one. All the details are a bit hazy. This time I was alert and present and completely in the moment. While everything happened fast, the details are a lot more vivid. I continued to nurse her and Guy and I marveled at our newest creation.
Charlotte prepared my herbal bath and Georgie and I got in for a relaxing soak just as I had done
with Oliver. We cuddled and she nursed (some more)... this little girl sure was hungry.
I couldn't believe she was here, we had a little GIRL, it had all happened so fast and so easy
 and she was perfection!



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