Beryl’s Arrival

Following up from a couple of previous posts on trying to stay active throughout the pregnancy…

I stopped cycling on Dec 16, my last day of work and my last bike commute for at least a year (Canadian maternity leave is 52 weeks).  The time off work opened up the days for walking and swimming.  Walking to the seabus for the nautical public transit trip downtown and then a mile swim at the YWCA.   My swim suit was at it’s limits!

By the time the holidays and my family came, I could only waddle a couple kilometers each day, but managed to do something every day until 2 days before Beryl was born.  Overall, I remained lucky throughout this pregnancy and very very happy to have been able to exercise so regularly.

And for those interested some details on the actual birth.

In summary, I was as lucky with the birth as I was with the pregnancy.  Our midwives were a perfect match for our desires and goals.  Their relaxed but thorough approach to my healthy, normal pregnacy helped keep my anxiety attenuated.  They supported my cycling habit, vegetarian diet, and mental health concerns (I have had some previous experience with depression and well, if Anxiety and Self-Doubt were an Olympic sport I’d be Podium Material).  They supported our decision to have a home-birth.  To increase the chances of a smooth birth, we also added a fanastic doula, Lolli Comar, to our team.  Our ideal was a home birth, but we also registered at 2 of the hospitals that our midwives use just to cover the bases.

I had been having mild to moderate contractions every 8-20 mins since Dec 25.  By 12:30 am Jan 31st, I was pretty certain that things were progressing.  I was in and out of sleep until I woke Scott up around 3:00 am.  He put the TENS machine on my back and we went back to bed.  At 7 am we called the doula who recommended a walk, but it was 10 am before I had the energy to get out of the house.  I think it took us an hour to go 4 city blocks!  In the meantime Scott has given the midwives a heads-up call at 8am.

Breathing. Walking. Breathing.

The doula arrived at our house near 2 pm.  Lolli kept both Scott and I focused and reassured.  She had me changing positions, walking up the stairs and generally labouring throughout the house.  I was grateful that we had an expert to help us through the labour.  Sometimes the contractions would come on top of each other without a break and sometimes there was enough of a break to fall asleep for a minute or two.  Having Lolli there to reassure us that things were normal and safe let me stay focused on each minute of the labour instead of watching the clock or getting worried about how the intensity of the contractions could possible increase.

The midwife came to the house around 4 pm and the labouring continued. Upstairs, downstairs, on the couch, in the bathroom, leaning on the bed, in the labouring pool.  I was deliberately not looking at the clock, but I knew that it was now dark outside and had to be after 4:30 pm.  I declined when the midwife asked if I wanted to know how far along the dilation had progressed.  Scott and I had discussed that earlier and decided it would be too easy for me to overthink how the labour was going, and possibly get upset or anxious, if I wasn’t as far along as hoped for.

Festive Labour

Eventually the time for pushing came.  That was very hard work.  Exhausting.  After pushing for about 2 hours,  I was tired.  All I wanted was a short 10 or 15 min nap.  If I could have that nap, I knew I could deliver the baby.  But, labouring women don’t get naps!  I remember hearing the doula and midwife say to each other that my fitness and core muscles could be making the pushing more difficult.  I had been in a reclining position on the sofa without much progess and was pursuaded to move into a squat.  A few pushes later, Beryl arrived at 10:10 pm!

Our moms arrived around 11pm as the midwives and doula were finishing cleaning up.  By 1 am we were on our own as a family.  We went upstairs and realized that we had an unclothed, undiapered baby and no one to help us figure out how to do it.  It only took us abour 40 mins to figure it out…clearly all of our engineering degrees didn’t qualify us for baby dressing 101.

It was great to have Beryl at home and to go straight to our beds.  We didn’t have to move or leave the house for several days.

I will brag a bit– the midwife said my placenta was one of the biggest and healthiest she’d seen for a baby of Beryl’s size!  I also was fortunate enough to not have any tearing or other trauma.  Looks like a lifetime of exercise and good diet may have helped me (but luck and genetics probably were bigger factors)!

Almost a month after Beryl’s birth, we remain lucky.  Like mom AND dad, she she is a very good eater.  She was 1 oz over her birth weight of 7 lbs 7 oz at the 1 week checkup and just over 9 lbs by 2.5 weeks!  I wish she would sleep as well as she ate, but we have had a few 4 hour eat/sleep cycles.