Thad’s Birth Story | Part 7: Time to Call the Midwife
I shared Thad’s birth story in installments on social media. Since not everyone is on social media, I wanted to also share the story of his birth here on my blog. This version is the narrative form version, which I wrote initially for family and friends. If you’re jumping in here on this post, you may want to go back and start with Part One.
Alternatively, I also have an overview post of my pregnancy and Thad’s birth over here on this post.
At 4:30am, I woke from my between-contraction doze to yet another contraction, started the same mental scan and the same breathing and the same self coaching. It lasted the same amount of time, but it felt different. Sharper. My steady breathing wavered for just a second.
Six minutes later the next one hit, and it also seemed just a tad harder. It lasted 55 seconds. The next one, I found myself whispering, “ohhhhhh” at the peak of the intensity. By two contractions later, my “ohhhh’s” had a bit of vocalization in them.
Something was changing – these were getting harder to deal with. Gabe stirred behind me.
“I’m going to get up.” I whispered to him. “They’re still basically the same – length and frequency – but I’m not coping as well. I need to change something. I’m going to try standing – and I need to pee and drink more. And then I’ll get in the tub.”
Gabe followed me out of the dark room into the living room lit by the flickering fire.
I grabbed my phone and hit “start” on yet another contraction, leaning against the counter top and swaying. It was sharp, but relatively short.
I made my way to the toilet. I was bracing myself because I usually hate having contractions on the toilet, and I was sure another would hit.
I debated inside my head: my app record indicated nothing obvious or significant had changed. But deep in my hazy, half dozing, hormone saturated brain, my intuition was sending a message that something WAS changing. Was it time to call the midwife?
In Mara’s birth, we went to the hospital what I now realise was too soon. Jem’s, we waited so long I was pushing in the car. With Laz, my midwife told me to call her when I would want to head to the hospital or birth centre. I didn’t know when that would be until I was deep into labour, and then I just knew. She arrived about 30 minutes before Laz was born.
My gut told me I should call her. My brain was afraid it was too soon – it wanted more evidence to decide on.
I went with my gut.
Charlotte answered quietly and I apologized for waking her, told her things had been the same for hours. Nothing significant was changing, but I was finding the contractions harder to cope with. I told her I thought I would feel better if she started coming.
She said she’d start moving my direction.
“Don’t hurry – I don’t think there’s a rush. I just really hope it isn’t another false alarm.” I said, before we hung up. It was 5:07am.
Part 8