Rachel
and Austin’s birth story Auckland, New Zealand. Posted
on September 30, 2010. Reprinted here with
permission from Rachel.
 A
week ago yesterday I gave birth to Austin Ernest
Cunliffe – a gorgeous baby boy weighing
9 pounds 2 ounces and 52cm long. After having
quite a long labour with my other son Eli, I expected
it to go quicker, but not quite as quickly as
it did!
While everything is still fresh
in my mind, I wanted to write about it –
much like Karen did with her birth story blog
post. If reading about labour’s not your
thing, move right along ;)
I woke up last Wednesday at 5am
and had a couple of very minor contractions –
I’d had others over the past three and a
half weeks and this wasn’t anything out
of the ordinary. I was four days past my due date
(not overdue in my mind since Eli was born five
days after his due date). I rolled over and went
back to sleep.
At 7:30am I started to get more
contractions, but again they were so minor I got
up and went about the day as normal – had
breakfast, got Eli ready for Montessori and got
on with things. Naturally, I told Regan but didn’t
know if they were going to stop and didn’t
want anyone to make a fuss (or start asking me
regularly how things were) so I didn’t tell
anyone else. I sat down at my desk just after
9am and replied to emails and worked away as usual
while jotting down in TextEdit the times of the
still minor, but regular contractions:
9:22am, 9:29am, 9:38am, 9:47am,
9:57am, 10:06am, 10:15am, 10:22am, 10:29am, 10:38am,
10:46am, 10:57am, 11:05am, 11:13am, 11:21am, 11:28am,
11:34am, 12:11pm, 12:17pm, 12:25pm, 12:34pm, 12:42pm,
12:48pm, 12:57pm, 1:06pm…
I figured I’d probably
go into proper labour that night, and have the
baby early the next morning. During the contractions,
I’d shut my eyes and rock my desk chair
and think about being back in Hawaii because it
was raining and hailing outside and generally
hideous weather all day. I read that thinking
about waves/water can help distract you during
contractions.
Wasn’t super hungry for
lunch, but ate a couple of pieces of toast with
honey and kept drinking water. I then realised
I hadn’t taken a photo of my baby bump at
40+ weeks so this is the one I snapped at 1:27pm:
 I
was slowly getting a bit uncomfortable with the
contractions but I still figured I had ages to
go so decided to take a break from work and go
watch the first episode of the new season of House
– but I was annoyed I was missing watching
chunks of it due to contractions so turned it
off and found it more uncomfortable than sitting
on my office chair so went back to work.
At 2pm, I sent a message on MSN
to my brother saying “might be having this
baby today after all – either today/tomorrow”
2:08pm, 2:15pm, 2:23pm, 2:31pm,
2:40pm, 2:46pm, 2:50pm…
At about this point, I decided
to call my midwife and tell her I was having regular
contractions but was still feeling fine and would
let her know if things progressed to closer together
ones.
At 2:52pm I sent a txt to my
dad saying “Hello one baby on way prob tonight”.
They left work to come pick up Eli.
At 3:13pm I sent an email to
a client, Jeff, saying I was going to stop working
as the baby was on its way.
My parents came by and picked
up Eli sometime after 4pm and by this point I
thought it was a good idea to go up and get checked
by my midwife’s partner who was up at the
birthing unit (my midwife was about 30 minutes
away at a clinic). Contractions still weren’t
4-6 minutes apart or regular but a couple after
4pm were close together and quite strong. I figured
I should get checked and at least know how far
along I was, even if I had to go back home again.
We got to the birthing unit and
waited around a bit while the midwife finished
the appointment before me. At 4:35pm, she saw
me and told me I was 5cm dilated already! I was
pretty surprised, wasn’t expecting that
at all. She called my midwife and I remember being
surprised she was telling her to hurry and later
on hearing updates on the phone as to where she
was.
At 5:15pm I got into the birthing
pool – I had an “almost” water
birth with Eli and hoped to be able to stay in
the pool for the birth this time. I remember thinking
that I’d be in there for a while because
it wasn’t that painful yet. My main midwife
arrived at 5:30pm and I remember her saying that
the baby was going to be born really soon and
was really encouraging — I was still surprised
that she thought he’d come so quickly.
She was right though —
at 5:58pm Austin was born in the water after only
three minutes of pushing.
Unlike last time, I wasn’t
totally exhausted from a long pre-labour period;
I was so aware of everything going on. One of
the most amazing things during the labour was
being able to feel him moving down and realising
I was making huge progress.
I was overwhelmed with the most
amazing feeling to have given birth like that
without complications or drugs or stitches and
not being in intense agony. I felt on top of the
world and couldn’t stop laughing and smiling
and looking down at my new baby boy. Here’s
photos of that moment just after he was born:
Austin Ernest Cunliffe, born
at Helensville Birthing Centre at 5:58pm on September
22nd weighing 9 pounds 2 ounces (4.15kg), 52cm
long and a pretty decent head size of 37.5cm!
You hear so many stories
of horrid labours and all these interventions
and not enough of the good stories – so
here’s to hearing more of the encouraging
labour stories in our Western society.
You
might be interested in the Joyful Childbirth 3
hour Antenatal Class for Natural Pain Relief |
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