Sinead’s Birth

“The Tale of the Toilet Family”

My husband (Terence) and I are so excited to say that we had a beautiful baby girl at 41 weeks 1 day. We have a very unique and fun birth story we are willing to share with y’all and we have some pictures of my focal point and signs for the room…did I remember to put them up no, but I did visualize my one true focal point throughout my labor.

I started having mild contractions Monday 4/28 into Tuesday 4/29. We had our 41 week appointment 4/29 with our midwife at Greenville Midwifery Care and we gathered a game-plan because I was approaching the 42 week mark that I may possibly have to have an induction. I did not want to be induced because I wanted to have this baby with as little intervention as possible. So I did have my membrane sweep that day since I was having contractions and my midwife said that it may be an “irritable uterus”. The great news is that since my 36 week mark our baby was head down and LOA and I was already 60% effaced 1cm dilated at my 41 week appointment. She remained head down & LOA the whole time – so proud of her! Once I got my membrane sweep at 9:30am Tuesday 4/29 I still had mild contractions but then I started to vomit and vomit the other end if you know what I mean. I also lost my mucus plug that evening. So I knew that labor was kicking in.

I tried to get as much sleep as possible throughout the night breathing easily through early labor contractions but I did get up and vomit etc. By 6am I felt like I had a really bad stomach virus. I couldn’t keep anything down so I was concerned and called the midwife to ask what to do. So Barb (midwife) said to come in to get IV fluids and she checked me at this point I was 90% effaced but no improvement with dilation still at 1cm. Barb told me that I was very dehydrated and suggested starting an IV of Pitocin to help speed the labor process up. It did speed things and eventually with some nausea medication I was able to keep clear fluids down. Barb’s only concern was that I may be tired from labor that was about to happen which is why she suggested the Pitocin that was at 9am when we got admitted on Wednesday 4/30.

Once early/active labor was really kicking into gear I honestly felt for me that it wasn’t that bad. I have had bad periods in the past but it wasn’t the constant dull aching feeling all day, it was short 1 minute spurts that I was able to breathe through each one and once they were done I was fine. I said to my husband each time it feels so good to get a break after. At this point my favorite position was sitting on the birthing ball, hunched over with the bed raised doing pelvic tilts, hip circles, figure 8’s during contractions. I also knew that I wanted to get into the tub when I could because even when I would have my period I loved taking a nice hot shower letting water run on my back and belly so that already felt comfortable to me. Since I did have the pitocin I did have constant monitoring of my contractions as well as babies heartbeat but don’t worry because you can get them wet yay! The only thing that is frustrating is that if you find a comfortable position it may knock off the sensor and the nurse will have to come fix it but they will wait until your contraction is done – well most should..

Throughout my labor my husband and Barb were really great encouragers and I just imagined my main focal point which was being a “Cow”. Now, what do you mean by that, well…a cow has a deep moo so with every contraction during active/transition I literally mooed and I mooed deep. At this stage the contractions were so close together that I didn’t have too much of a break at this point but when I did it was so nice. During this whole phase I was still utilizing the birthing ball and had my husband spraying my mid to lower back like he was watering flowers with hot water – I mainly liked sitting on the ball but I did do captain morgan pose to switch things up every now and then leaning into each contraction. So that is where the monitors were frustrating the most! During shift change we did have a nurse come in to fix the baby’s heartbeat monitor but my contraction monitor wasn’t sitting right (as I said my contractions were really close together at this point and I was just focused on getting through it) so when I had a little break she went to fix it but then a contraction came quick before she could do anything and I said “I’m about to have a contraction can you wait?” and she told me “NO”. I snapped at her and said “yes you can a minute and half”. She left the room. When I got that contraction I turned to my husband and used our code word which was “Eggplant”. He knew exactly what to do, who told Maureen (new midwife during shift change) and I got a new nurse who was just an angel like my first shift nurse. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO SPEAK UP FOR YOURSELF. THIS IS YOUR LABOR!!!

I started to feel a little discouraged at this point, crying and wanting to give up and used the famous words “I don’t know if I can do this”. My husband was encouraging me saying I could do it and I told him I feel like I’m going to have to poop. So I am in the shower and I said I’m sorry if I have to go and you see that, so with every contraction then I was pushing holding onto the bar in the shower with this time cold water on my back. A little while after that I wanted to get out of the shower to change positions which I did get out of the shower and this is where gravity helped me because I was sitting on the birthing ball this whole time — I got up slowly to walk towards the bed but with each contraction I was bearing down pushing not realizing that my baby was coming. I said to the midwife I think I have to poop so I’d rather do that on the toilet.

At this time my husband had to go to the bathroom and he couldn’t go in our room clearly, since everyone was in there so he left. Once I got on the toilet seat I was pushing thinking I was pooping but no my baby’s head was coming out! While that was happening my husband was not there so once I felt her head coming I said “where is my husband??” We tried calling him, he didn’t answer so the nurses called him on the speaker because he was nowhere to be found! I literally gave birth to our baby on the toilet! Once her head was born the rest of her slid right out and she was placed on my belly, since she was a surprise and my husband was supposed to tell me what we had so I said “please don’t tell me what we had my husband is supposed to” and the midwives and nurses respected that.

My husband made it back and told me we had a baby girl and the baby pooped on me twice! Hence the “Tale of the Toilet family”. I did have some tearing and had to get stitches but I was so proud of myself in the end. I kept saying “I can’t believe I did that” and that I achieved my goal of having no epidural.

Thank you so much Julie for your wonderful teaching and guidance! My husband and I both said that we wouldn’t have been half as prepared if we didn’t take your class. So I am definitely recommending it to everyone I know!