Birth Story Series: My first birth - 2022, part 1

Setting the scene: My husband Simone and I live in the Italian countryside. I had support from a private midwife, Marianna, through my pregnancy with the goal of having a homebirth.

[Written up in great detail shortly after birth. Presented here with a couple of extra comments in square brackets and italics.]

I was nearly 40 weeks pregnant, and one night I woke up at 1:30am to pee. I have no idea if I’d been dreaming, but I just had the clear thought in my head for no apparent reason “I’m going to go into labour today” (only I thought it in Italian, not English). I went back to bed and back to sleep.

I woke up again around 3:50 and went to the bathroom, but this time when I wiped there was pink blood on the toilet paper. I know that seeing blood is quite normal leading up to birth (often called “bloody show”), though doesn’t necessarily mean it’s imminent. I took a photo anyway to be able to show Marianna if I wanted, and headed out of the bathroom. I was feeling a bit weird in the stomach and decided it might be a good idea to eat something. I went upstairs to the kitchen and now I honestly can’t remember whether or not I ended up eating. Anyway, I felt I needed the bathroom so went and pooped. Finished up and was going to head back to bed but I just felt weird and crampy and like I needed to poop again. So I did. Same thing happened again and meantime I was noticing more blood, and redder, and was a bit concerned about the quantity. When I finally managed to get out of the bathroom I went back downstairs (around 4:15).

Simo had woken up and asked me if everything was okay because he’d heard me flush the toilet three times! I told him about the bleeding and said I thought I might go into labour today. I went back to bed and promptly had a contraction, but different to the contractions I’ve had in the last week to ten days. This time I felt it across my back, it got more intense, then eased off. I tried to settle down to get some sleep in case things were really going to get moving today. I had another contraction. Then another. Simo asked me what time it was after a couple of them and so we saw they were only 4mins apart, and judging by the number of repeats of the breathing pattern I was doing (4 breaths in, 8 out) around 40-60 seconds long. I’d read that in early labour they’re usually 30-40 seconds long and around 5-20mins apart but I know they can be irregular so I said to Simo that rather than contacting Marianna right away we should wait and see if the pattern held.

After half an hour or so it was getting uncomfortable to stay lying down, and I definitely couldn’t sleep anyway because I didn’t have enough time between the contractions. We figured that since we weren’t sleeping and it looked like this was “it”, we should get up and get ourselves organised. I felt like I needed to eat something, so that was obviously a priority, but also I needed to have a shower and wash my hair and knew that the shower would be nice with the contractions in any case. I made the bed and collected my things for the shower in between contractions, then went upstairs. I ate a few figs and almonds but didn’t manage to eat much. I needed to go to the toilet so went and found yet more blood. It was a lot more than I’d expected, and red. By this time it was 5am so Simo called Marianna to let her know what was going on and ask her about the bleeding. She had him send a photo (5:05) and said it was perfectly normal and nothing to worry about, as long as it wasn’t any more than I would get during my period.

I had a shower (just managing to get my belly in through the shower door!) and that was lovely. I just leant against the wall during the contractions and for the rest I enjoyed the warm water. After the shower Simo showed me some messages from Marianna who he’d arranged to be in touch with again around 7:30/8. She said that these contractions were early labour — irregular at the start but would soon settle into a pattern with longer gaps between them. I was starting to feel like I risked wearing myself out too quickly and told Simo I wanted to lie on the lounge and listen to a relaxation audio. So he put one on and I lay down for a good 20+ minutes to rest and relax as much as possible. Lying down started to get uncomfortable though, and I got up to go to the bathroom, then dried and braided my hair to keep it out of the way since it was making me hot. Meantime I paused as necessary to breathe through contractions, which didn’t seem to be getting any further apart. I tried to sit on the exercise ball and got off it straight away. It wasn’t at all comfortable. I spent a while standing leaning on the sideboard but my arms and legs were getting tired and I moved over instead to kneel on the lounge, leaning on the back of it, facing out the window. That worked well, though I felt my arms and legs tiring in that position too. Simo got out the exercise mat so I could try on all fours, but it was too uncomfortable and I went back to the lounge, alternating every so often with standing leaning on the sideboard. I continued waiting for the longer breaks between contractions which Marianna had mentioned, and meanwhile the contractions got longer, stronger, and closer together.

Simo prepared scrambled eggs and bresaola for breakfast around 7:30 and insisted on making it for me too, even though it didn’t appeal to me at all. He brought a plateful over and set it on the windowsill in front of me, telling me to eat three spoonfuls in each break between contractions so that I’d have energy later on. I didn’t want to at all, but I knew he was right about needing energy. I managed one spoonful, but already by the time I was up to the next one I had to pause part way through chewing to breathe through the next contraction. I managed about a quarter of the dish of eggs in total. Shortly before 8am Marianna messaged Simo to ask if it suited to call and see how we were going. He said yes and she called around 8:10. Simo told her that we hadn’t arrived at having longer gaps between contractions but that they were stronger, longer and closer together, and she asked if it would be okay if she came over to see how things were going and have a listen to the baby’s heartbeat. Simo asked me and I said yes, and continued focusing on my contractions.

Every so often in pauses between contractions I went to the bathroom, having read how important it is to try and pee regularly during labour even though you might not feel the instinct to pee. On one such occasion I went, and tried to relax my pelvic floor muscles as much as possible in order to be able to pee. In that I didn’t succeed, but I did succeed in relaxing and having a break for the first time in hours. It was great, and so of course I stayed on the toilet a bit longer! In hindsight I know of course that this success in relaxation was due to the fact that the previous type of contractions had finished and I was moving to the next phase, but at the time I just appreciated the break without having it register that I’d gone several minutes without a contraction, so I didn’t even think it was strange. I was there on the toilet, doing a bit of down breathing to relax things, when I heard a gush of liquid and realised my waters had broken. [I later found out that this break between dilation and pushing is quite common in physiological birth, and is known as the "rest and be thankful" stage.]

Continued in part 2 next week!

[Photo of me with baby M, shortly after birth]