Here's to my midwives and doulas: my birth stories thus far

Someone suggested that I should get the coordinates of my children's births tattooed on my arm like Angelina Jolie. I don't have as many kids as her, and they weren't born in such abroad places, but I am anyone's best bet in real life (since when is Angie real?). I've travelled very far between each pregnancy ..... nobody has to see that twice.... and on thinking about it, today being International Midwives Day, there have been so many people assist me during my births. The worst part is, I can see all their faces, but I can't remember all their names. I've never written down my birth story for any of the boys and all the stories are getting mooshed up and confused with the others. But the different people, and places, help mark the difference. And there have been a fair few people.

With my firstborn, I wanted as much support I could get for the most "natural" birth I could get. I came into the experience with ignorance on my side and I was pretty sure I could do it without any intervention. As I wasn't married and my boyfriend lived overseas at the time it was unsure if he could be around to help me. But he did plan his holidays to at least be there the following two weeks after my expected due date, so anything could have happened. (I ended up marrying that boyfriend, and that's Woz, for those who didn't know. That's probably another post though!) So without Woz as a certainty, I enlisted Mum and my best friend Jas to be with me for support.  And then I enlisted a lady from church, a close family friend I've known my whole life (that I can remember), Jenny McD who is an unregistered midwife, and had been a doula-type support for another friend where Mum also supported. Mum couldn't speak highly enough of Jenny at work and so it was awesome that she wanted to be a part of my journey too. These three girls were my very first doulas. Jenny did plenty of ante-natal prep with me on top of the classes that the local regional hospital provided too.

When Hughie eventually decided to start his journey out, Woz was in town. So there were plenty of people on board and none of us really knew what we were in for. (Hugh now explains to his younger brothers that he used a sword to get out of my tummy, and then used the sword to get his brothers out later, and will probably have to do it again for the new brother.) To add to the amount of people involved intricately in this story, it was such a long labour that my time in hospital spanned over three midwives' shifts. Out of these three midwives I can only remember two of their names: Horrible Mary and Nice Mary. I've probably said enough there. Horrible Mary was first. She wanted me to have a sleeping tablet and get a full night's rest before "the real stuff" began. I didn't agree with her because I had been pre-labouring for 12 hours and then regular, strong contractions for another five hours before we came to the hospital at 9pm that Monday night - at the start of her night shift. So even though I was only 2cm dilated I remember thinking is she crazy? Things are happening! At about midnight, people were thinking I'd be holding my baby at 6am. But actually she was right. There was plenty of time yet. (Not sure the sleeping tablet would have helped me rest though).

She wouldn't let me in the shower as my waters hadn't broken yet. She wanted me to sign paperwork and stuff during contractions (She wanted me to re-iterate that I didn't want my baby to have hep B vaccinations at birth). She wouldn't check the kitchen if there was ice, cordial or honey available as I didn't want the stuff I'd packed. She was generally overwhelmed by and unsupportive of my incredibly massive birth support team, and this 20-year-old first timer who reckoned she didn't want any drugs, oxytocin injections or even vitamin K to her newborn.

Anyway, I still thank her, for her time and expertise.

Then there was Nice Mary. I could go in the shower when she came in and she was on when, at 10.30am, I was 7.5cm dilated and things slowed. Waters were artificially broken, pethidine jab in the bum, things started happening again. She brought me honey and drinks. When I started transitioning at about 1pm she brought in that thing, the table where they place the newborn to check him, with all the little paed instruments ready to use in case they're needed. I can remember Mum being excited and encouraged about the table being in the room - things aren't far off now. Nice Mary's shift was 7am - 3pm, and she stayed til 4pm to hopefully see what the heck was going to come out in the end, but she didn't. I was pushing from about 2pm from memory and we were doing all sorts of funny things to change positions and stuff.

In the end, the midwife who had been on since 3pm, whose name I can't remember (But i do remember she had a grown son called Hugh) took over and Dr Smyth and her recommended I get on the bed and let Dr help him out with the vacuum extract.

Hughie was born at 4.45pm, with Woz holding one hand, Jenny McD holding the other, one leg pushing Mum and one leg pushing Jas, and Dr Smyth yanking at baby's head. The midwife jabbed my bum with oxytocin since it'd been such a big day and after I'd nodded, okay then. Baby was blue-ish, stacks of black hair, and goobers everywhere. It was the weirdest feeling ever to hold him in my arms for the first time. But good weird. It only moments before he set the standard to how newborns should look for me. He was perfect!

So many thanks to Dr Smyth, Nice Mary, Jenny, Jenny McD, Jas and Woz, and the midwife who took over. If it weren't for my big birth support team, I strongly feel I would have likely been transferred to Perth to get baby out by surgery. Even in the subsequent birth experiences, I have not been able to breathe through a contraction like I was able to with Jenny McD guiding me.

Nineteen short months later and I was in for it all over again, but this time many miles north in Hong Kong. I had an expatriated Sydney-born doctor who really knew his stuff. Our incredibly huge medical bills were paid for by the company my husband worked for - AU$5000 for the doctor's attendance at the birth, AU$5000 for our birthing suite and two nights in the exquisite hospital room with views overlooking the south of Hong Kong, and that is after many trips in to Hong Kong from Guangdong province for antenatal visits throughout the pregnancy. I think each visit to the doc was about AU$150, complete with a 3D ultrasound check every time, and plenty of walking around Hong Kong to boot. So our little Nathaniel was our most expensive baby (and easiest.... do you think that's linked?!) even though we didn't pay a cent of it. And what a lovely birth experience too. Nate threatened to be posterior, but I spent plenty of time on my hands and knees in the last few days to encourage him to be where he should be, and I think all the walking about the cities we did at the time, by the time he was ready to birth he was perfectly positioned.

Mum, Woz, Hugh and I were sharing an apartment temporarily in the heart of Wan Chai, which was all of 553 square feet - it looks roomy in the layout in the link but let me tell you, we felt squished. We were there for about six weeks - by the time Nate eventually came out, we'd been there three weeks, and then we had to organise Nate's birth certificate, citizenship, passport and visa before we could go home to China. We were on the 17th floor, complete with toddler-level windows without locks or security screens - a huge stress and we immediately found every garbage bag we could to use to tie up the windows shut as Hugh was at a very curious stage.

So Mum was looking after Hugh and me the whole day that I pre-laboured away with Nate. I noticed contractions coming every 4 minutes at about 6am. By the time Mum and Woz (with the support of the midwife on the other end of the phone line) forced me to get into a taxi down on Hennessy Rd (I was convinced I was in for another long trek like with Hugh, and I wasn't going to be treated like Horrible Mary treated me again - I was gonna hold off as long as possible!), we arrived at the hospital about 6pm. This proved to be a good amount of time to settle into the birthing suite, with Woz popping out for 45minutes to get himself some tea and me a banana. The midwives admitted me into the hospital and hooked me up to some thing that recorded contractions. There were two midwives, and I can't remember their names: one was very motherly, probably in her early 50's, and she was working with a student who only spoke cantonese. They didn't spend much time with me, as just as I started needing more attention, the shift changed. At 7.30pm, they confirmed looking at the contraction chart, that yes, I was in established labour.  The doctor came in then. He lived at the hospital and it was the first time I'd seen him since my last antenatal appointment. I can just remember being pleasantly surprised when he discovered I was 5cm dilated, but now that they had interfered they wanted to monitor baby for another half hour on that dang contraption, so i got hooked up again and had to stay on the bed. The doctor said see ya later that he'd go to bed for a little while, but he was back much sooner than expected. I ran myself a bath and spent a half hour in there before Woz made me get out cos he was worried about me being too hot and we were on our own, so nobody could confirm for him. When the midwives came back in within the hour they found me to be 8cm dilated, and then wanted me to stay on the bed hooked up to that thing again because they'd given me the internal.

I guess the midwife shift changed at about 9pm or something, because that is about the time that things started going crazy in my head and I was in transition. I was still hooked up to that stupid monitor and I felt very restricted, my body just wanted to be active. I ended up pushing every bit of bedding off the bed somehow, and Woz stood safely behind the head of the bed, where I couldn't get him, but he could be in my face when I needed him to remind me to breathe. At the very beginning of this is when Emma waltzed in: she looked about 20 years old, had a slightly demeaning manner tucked about her English accent, and wore heaps of eye make-up. I mean heaps. It was liquid black stuff that filled from the middle of her eyelid to the end of her eyebrow. Black. And buck teeth. She was quite good as a midwife but it was very bad timing to waltz in with a smile and introduce herself. I wanted the old motherly woman back.

Before I knew it, I was kneeling on the bed, facing back at Woz, with a doctor and Emma behind me, and beautiful Nathaniel coming out. Easy. He was born at 11.15pm and was terribly gorgeous and healthy. Emma took us on a tour through the placenta. Woz and Nate retreated to our room, I got back in the bath, and watched a little cantonese cleaner mop up a thousand litres of amniotic fluid and bloody mess. Mum even got Hughie out of bed and came up to the hospital for a quick look before we went to bed!

And so I thank Mum, Dr Dawson, Emma, the lovely motherly midwife, and the cantonese student, and Woz (Is it possible to blame someone for it and thank them for it at the same time!?) for my best birthing experience.

Back in Australia, we were ready for our next addition and Nate was eighteen months old when I was due to have Theo. With Theo I was 3cm dilated at 38wks and having weird stop-start pre-labour, so it was all a bit confusing really. Plus, my due date had been put back three times; when i say "put back" I mean, made to be later, as that is how I always decide to understand that phrase, but i'm never sure if "putting back" or "putting forward" means earlier or later. But anyway: my first EDD was May 25th, then it was May 31st, and then when I was about 14weeks it was changed again June 2nd. Because of all the prestart labour kahooting, Mum hung around from about 38 weeks to care for the little ones, which i needed by then anyway. But it didn't work out dreamily because she had to fly home the day after Theo was born as she'd used up all her two weeks of holiday. We nearly induced me to get him out before she had to leave, but thankfully, he decided to come out on his own on the 4th, after a couple of cups of rasberry tea: whether that had anything to do with it or not, I dunno.

I had a fever that day, and nobody knows why, but i remember laying on my bed in the late afternoon with the winter sun on me, and feeling very hot. I didn't know I had a fever though until after my arrival at the hospital, when I was refused the bathtub. AAHHHH!!!! I had been counting on that one. Oh well - back to what I was talking about.

We enlisted more help again, in the form of my best friend Bonnie. With Mum at home taking care of the boys, Bonnie met us at the hospital and started making herself useful straight away, finding food for Woz, and reading me my verses I'd written out during the day. Throughout the day, i found immense comfort in meditating on the nature of God. So i had written out several verses to help me remember them as it got harder. Focussing on the spiritual part of the journey of becoming a mother, and doing what I had been called to do got me through those scary moments of anticipating what was to come. Phillipians 2:11 He is God the Father. Ephesians: The Father is the one from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth receive its identity. Revelation: He created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it. Isaiah: He is the one who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people and life to those who walk on it. Isaiah: To whom will you compare God? what image? Job: How Great is God - beyond our understanding!! Psalm: The LORD Most High is awesome, the great King over all the earth.

As I laboured away, Theo was stubbornly posterior, and I felt it. It was like a torn, broken muscle that had to be used again before getting the chance to heal. I can't remember when I started getting regular contractions with Theo, but we went to the hospital at about 4pm and after all the paperwork was taken care of, we just walked around and didn't do much. I can't remember the names of ANY of the midwives who helped me, but one of the two was a student midwife who was 20weeks pregnant herself. I wish I could remember her name. I dealt more with her than the other one. She was concerned about my 38.5deg fever which hadn't come down at all after panadol. Noone knew/knows why I had a fever. But, I had tested positive to the thing that they test you for at 36weeks - some sort of something present in the birthing arena which is apparently normal to have or to not have, but if you have, they like to administer anti-biotics during childbirth via a drip, to keep baby safe from it. (I have become a little bit blasé about these things, I'm noticing, since Hugh's birth. I think I have just been a little burned by the way Horrible Mary treated me, and so have not been as diligent at learning up as I was the first time). So anyway, I ended up being on a drip most of the time, if not to administer anti-biotics, then to receive saline fluids into my system to regulate my temperature. It never stayed down enough for me to be able to get into that nice big bath though, which is what I really wanted - I just knew how awesome it was with Nate and that when I got in I was 5cm and when I got out 2 contractions later I was 8cm. But it was not to be. I spent a lot of time in the shower hanging off the handlebars until the midwives decided I was fully dilated at about 10.30pm.

Then I got acquainted with the bed. It was pretty amazing. There were all sorts of add-ons for me to hang off, push on, grab, pull, you name it. My favourite was the bar going all the way over me at arm's height which i completely dangled off during a contraction, bringing my knees right up. I had learnt just that week from a friend about Ju Ju Sundin and some of her pain management techniques, which i employed passionately, so that the midwives were commenting - "You'll have a sore hand tomorrow" - to which I replied in my head - Everything is already going to be sore tomorrow.... it's sore NOW!

The doctor was on his first week at the hospital, ever. I had only met him once before this day. The roster system at this hospital meant that I had a one in four chance that the obstetrician who cared for me throughout my pregnancy would actually be on duty to attend the birth, and I didn't get that chance. This guy: I don't know if he was fresh out of uni or whatever, but he wasn't exactly bossy or filled with confidence. He did a lot of observing, with his gumboots and butcher's apron on. For a while, he argued with the midwives about whether I was fully dilated or not. I wasn't getting any urge to push, and I knew that the only other two births I've given, I have had a cervical lip that wants to be helped back before the baby comes into the birth canal. So they were talking about that. Dr didn't want to intervene or check to see if I was dilated. I'd been sitting on the bed for a fair while before the doctor called another doctor to come and assess me. He was the one who does emergency ceasareans. I was slightly relieved at the thought of someone who knew what they were doing, coming to help my cervical lip go away, but I was thinking that, like my doctor in Hong Kong, he lived at the hospital. But he was a half hour away. WHAT! Give me drugs people - I want relief while I wait please. But no can do. The midwives made me turn around, get on my hands and knees and coax the baby to turn around. I had Woz near me and I'm pretty sure i squished Bonnie's hand too. Within two contractions of being on all fours i found myself turning back around with a baby coming out like - in Wozza's words - a battering ram. He did a bit of damage. Cos he was huge. I felt like I was pushing, hard, but I think he was coming out anyway. His shoulders were harder to get out than his head.

Theo was the first of the three that I birthed facing him, and he came out and came straight to me, and i was holding him when Bonnie cut the cord. This didn't happen with Hugh - he was bundled before I got him, and Woz got the first hold of Nate because I was still facing the bed. It was really special, not to mention that the emotions that slowly came with Hugh, and that came faster with Nate, came immediately with Theo. He was all swollen in the face, with his big boofy nose like mine. He was so fair! Even Nate, who is mousy brown, had black hair at birth. I wasn't used to claiming a fair one for my own. He had birthed at 1.15am, on Bonnie's birthday.

It took an hour or so before the doc was finished cleaning up what Theo had messed up. Bonnie headed off home, and Woz was left to put a nappy on the little man, but he used his charms to get the midwife to do it. It was new midwife now. Our two girls that had turned me round to get the baby positioned had finished their notes and gone home to bed - their shift was meant to finish at 11pm, but they had stayed to see the birth through. I can see all their faces, but I really don't know what their names are. Frustrating!

We got to spend another hour after that in the birthing suite by ourselves with our new son, getting that precious first feed in. It was after three a.m. before Woz found the midwife to ask her to help me off the bed so i could get cleaned up and ready for bed. But it wasn't much use going to bed. Woz was snoring within minutes of hitting his swag, but i just couldn't stop looking at Theo. I started feeling drowsy at about 5am, when another lady came into the hospital in labour, and every bit of me empathised with that girl, as I heard her breathing through contractions and quietly whimpering. She was put in the room next door to me but only for about an hour before being whisked down to the birthing suite. But by then I was ready to go looking for food. And then visitors!! This was our first South Australian baby - and the first time our South Australian family members could meet our baby so early. It was very exciting. The visitors lasted until 8.30pm and I really was ready to hit the sack then. After a good sleep that night, we got ready to take Theo home. It was rainy and cold and my house was clean and full of food that Mum had stocked up on.

And so I thank Woz, Bonnie, Mum, the three nameless but amazing midwives, Dr Sargeant, Dr Bryant and Dr Klomp for the amazing achievement of Theo's entrance.

And so the story continues. Even though I have forgotten so much of these events, there are still pieces that I will never forget, including bits that I would never shoot out to cyber space. And anyway, how can you truly capture in words such amazing events? I can't believe Theo is nearly two years old? Where did that go? It feels like yesterday. Will the next birth be like any of these ones? Will the boy look like any of his brothers? Will the midwives be like Emma? Horrible Mary? the Motherly one? Bonnie is enlisted again, because she is going to be in the Pilbara then too, amazingly enough. So's Mum - she'll have three to look after this time. Oh, and Woz will be there too! Happy International Midwives Day all - and when I celebrate Midwives I celebrate everyone who is in the industry of supporting birthing mothers, however it may be.

Most of all, I thank God for my beautiful, healthy babies, and I find rest in the fact that his hand is over what's to come. Phillipians 4:19 My God will supply every need... 1 John 3:1 What great love the Father has lavished on us!