Kassiah's birth story

Just when I was starting to think that Kassiah would never arrive and I was permanently pregnant…contractions finally started.  It was late Thursday night and I was just about to go to sleep when I began to get a mild crampy feeling every 20 minutes or so.  I remembered my prenatal training from Mariah’s time and went straight to bed to ensure I’d be rested for labour.  By about 5am, the contractions were noticeable enough to wake me up, but still mild enough to know that I was in the early stage.  Ivan and I spent Friday juggling rest periods with strategies to progress the labour.  I knew I needed to walk, so we went on a family trip to the grocery store where I took occasional discrete pauses to breathe through contractions.  I tried to stay pretty active the rest of the day, but still squeezed in an afternoon nap with Mariah.  By Friday evening, the contractions were finally getting a bit closer together – like every 5-10 minutes, and a bit more painful.  Around 8pm, we packed Mariah a sleepover bag and shipped her off to a friend’s place, since we figured she’s a bit too young to understand what was about to happen.  Then we paged our midwives around 10 pm to give them a heads up that labour had started and that they would likely get another call in the middle of the night. 

I took a hot bath, since this usually slows down contractions if they’re just part of pre-labour, or speeds them up if your body is ready.  I was starting to get disappointed since the contractions began to slow down for a little while.  But sure enough, when I tried to go to bed, they again intensified.  Ivan quickly bounced back into the role of labour coach and applied ‘counterpressure’ to my hips with each contraction to help with the pain.  I was so anxious to get labour moving that I was torn between sleeping and staying awake.  I was getting stuck in my head – busy with thoughts trying to analyze how far along into labour I was and how to hurry up the process, rather than trusting my body and just letting the process happen.  I had been timing the contractions all day and was so focused on trying to get them closer together, that my anxiety level had the opposite effect and I was getting frustrated that my body wasn’t listening to my orders. 

I tried hard to convince myself that things were moving forward.  Once contractions got down to about 5 minutes apart I paged my midwife, Debbie, again to check-in.  She offered to come and assess me, but also reminded me that I sounded a bit too chipper to be in the active phase of labour.  I agreed that I didn’t quite feel ‘there yet’ and decided to try and sleep one more time.  Ivan suggested we stop timing the contractions and just focus on relaxing – and as soon as I managed to turn my brain off and my body on, things finally started changing.  My response to the contractions progressively transitioned from breathing through them to moaning while squeezing Ivan.  By 3am, they had become intense enough that I was pretty sure I was in ‘active labour’.  I paged Debbie and said “I’m not chipper anymore” to which she laughed and assured me she and Theresa would be on their way.  They arrived just 15 minutes later when I had returned to the bathtub to help soothe the pain.  Each one brought me comfort and support, helping me feel safe in good hands.  When Debbie checked me, I probably should have been happy to already be 7cm dilated, but I joked that I wished I were 10cm already since I was fully dilated when the midwives arrived for Mariah’s delivery.  I realized that the whole time, I had been comparing this labour to my first experience, and hurrying it along to try and fit the same schedule.  But little did I know that despite my early labour being twice as long as the first time (about 30 hours), the active labour and pushing would turn out to be twice as fast the second time. 

As contractions continued to get more intense and closer together, I tried my best to cope with them.  I went back and forth from squatting under my rain shower to hanging over my bathtub, with Ivan pressing on my lower back.  I used a towel as a pillow and kept burying my face in it and grabbing onto it, like it could help me escape the pain.  The last few contractions were so strong that I was whimpering and thinking to myself I would never do this again.  Theresa leaned over and gently reminded me that even though it was hard to do, I needed to try and relax during contractions to allow my body to open up, so I tried my best to turn my clenched face into a calm one.  After just an hour and a half of active labour, I suddenly felt Kassiah’s head pressing down and I told the midwives I needed to push.  The first push didn’t do anything productive aside from making Theresa reach for the fish net (i.e. I may or may not have pooped a bit – don’t laugh, it’s very common during childbirth...nothing to be ashamed of, ladies!).  But on the next contraction, I sat up in the bathtub and before Theresa could even get her gloves on, Kassiah’s head was making her way through.  I could hear Ivan and the midwives encouraging me to slow down to minimize tearing, and I tried my best for a few seconds but then quickly gave another couple of pushes and Kassiah emerged into the water.  Theresa immediately handed her to me, and I was overwhelmed with relief that I had reached the finish line and that my baby was finally here.  She looked so much like Mariah did at birth that it was a bit unreal.  Ivan and I gushed in amazement as Debbie cozied Kassiah in warm towels on my chest and Theresa made sure she had a bit of a cry.  Kassiah officially arrived at 4:31 am Saturday July 7^th in the incredible waterbirth experience I had always wanted.  After the umbilical cord had finished pulsing, Ivan got to do the honours and Theresa told him that if we had a third, he could even be the ‘catcher’ (which I’ll have to thank her for later since I had only recently convinced Ivan and myself that two is enough : ) 

Soon after, the midwives helped me back to my bed where I was joined by Ivan and Kassiah for some snuggle time.  She weighed in at 6 lbs 7 oz – just an ounce smaller than Mariah was, even after Kassiah was 5 days overdue.  She was quiet and content upon her arrival into the world, and even latched on for a feed without any difficulty.  Ivan and I feel so lucky to have such a positive pregnancy and birth experience, yet again, that we gave Kassiah the middle name ‘Sage’ after the Sage Passages team with our Birth Partnership midwives. 

Me and my amazing midwives

The good old 'weigh' : )