On Tuesday night (May 12th), I had a few contractions that were slightly uncomfortable. Prior to this all my contractions were painless, and just involved my stomach getting hard and then relaxing. I said to Chris in the wee morning hours that maybe something was going to start happening soon.

When I got up, I noticed what I assumed was bloody show. So I figured something was going to happen in the next couple days at the very least! I called Chris at work to let him know, and he sounded a little nervous!

I had gardening to do, so I went out and planted my peas and radishes and carrots, beets and chard. I noticed the slightly painful contractions were back, but I just took my time planting and ignored them. They seemed really infrequent, so I wasn’t too concerned. The squatting and bending over felt good also.

Around 11am or so when I came back in from gardening, I thought maybe the contractions were settling in to some sort of pattern. Either that or I wasn’t as good at ignoring them. I started timing them around noon, and they were about 15 minutes apart at that point, and lasting about a minute each. Still not very painful, but definitely noticeable.

I started googling what early labour symptoms were. A lot of the descriptions say it feels like period pains, but I don’t get those very often so I was unsure if the very slight level of pain I was experiencing was real or not. I called Chris and he said “Do you want me to come home??”. I said no, because all he would do would fret and as far as I was concerned I was just fine and they had said in our prenatal classes and also in literature they gave out not to go to the hospital until the contractions were 5 minutes apart and lasting a minute each for at least an hour.

So I settled in on the couch with the laptop, and messaged my sister-in-law with the news. She’s an RPN so she asked me a bunch of questions and helped me with the timing. For the next few hours I just hung out, chatting with her and also my friend Varina, and timed my contractions using the Contraction Master website. They definitely were getting closer together! I called Chris around 2pm when they were about 6 minutes apart (at this point they kept being close together for a while and then spacing out to about 8-9 minutes apart), and again he started getting nervous so I told him to stay at work. It was actually a really nice time for me, because it was quiet, I was alone, but still had people to talk to.

When Chris got home at 4pm, they were about 5 minutes apart, but not lasting for an hour stretch. So I told him I would rather wait a little longer because the thought of being sent home from the hospital was deeply repellant to me, and also because I wanted to have a shower. On our hospital tour a few weeks before, we found out the tubs and showers in the birthing rooms were not available to be used because the ones they installed were unsafe. Nice, eh?

So I had a shower, and Chris made Kraft Dinner for supper (dinner of champions!) and we called a few people and packed up. At this point my contractions were about 3-4 minutes apart. We arrived at the hospital at around 6:45pm, and checked in at Maternity Registration at Emergency. Since I had pre-registered they just confirmed my info and then took us up to Labour and Delivery. By this point the contractions were definitely getting more painful, but I could get through them easily through breathing slowly. The shift changed at 7pm, so we had a bit of a wait until the night shift came on. So I got in a gown, and they hooked me up to some monitors in the ward room. The night nurse and a resident came through and did a cervix check and I was about 3cm dilated at that point. The nurse asked if I wanted the baby sooner rather than later and I said sooner because I assumed she was going to strip my membranes. I think she expected it to hurt, as she told me to squeeze really hard her hand but I didn’t feel anything at all. The next contraction though was instantly stronger and more painful! I stayed in that bed for a while and the nurse checked in periodically, for about 20 minutes or so.

So I was deemed to officially labouring and admitted to Birthing Room 4. Once there I had some blood taken and got IV antibiotics started in my arm, and Chris went to the car to get my bag. I sat on a rocking chair and varied that with walking around. I really didn’t want to sit. We called our friends Scott and Jen who were going to come hang out while I was in labour and told them to wait a bit because I felt kind of odd and a bit sick from the contractions. At this point though, we were still thinking it was going to be several hours, so figured they could come in a bit later.

The nurse asked if I wanted to use the approved tub in one of the other birthing rooms (they’ve only fixed one of them), and I said sure. She filled the tub and I got in and turned the jets on. Chris came in to sit with me. At this point I did not feel very good. I felt sick and shaky and cold and hot at the same time. After about 40 minutes in the tub I wanted to come out as I felt even worse. I said to Chris if labour was going to be like this now for several hours then I definitely wanted drugs. The nurse came in as I got dried off and re-gowned and looked at me and said, “I think you are ready to push!”.

So I walked back to the birthing room and on the way my contractions changed and I started feeling like I had to push. The nurse told me in general what I could anticipate feeling over the next little while, which was nice because I knew what to expect. When I got on the bed they went to call the doctor, and then suddenly I started feeling like I had to push even harder. So that caused a little flurry of activity and the doctor was paged again. They checked me again and I was 9.5cm dilated.

So in about an hour I went from 4cm-9.5cm. No wonder I felt so bad! The rest of the labour happened so quickly – I lay on my right side and then the contractions changed how they felt and they just kind of took over my body. I pushed when they told me to push and tried to just relax when they told me not to push. Chris stayed by my head and held my hand, and the nurse rubbed my back and put pressure on my hip and back during contractions.

And 15 minutes later, we had a girl at 10:29pm. They put her on my stomach and Chris and I just kind of stared at her for a while, it didn’t seem real. The placenta delivery felt really kind of odd, but not painful thank goodness. I tore a bit as the pushing part happened so quickly so I had to get stitched up. Chris called Scott and Jen, who seemed really excited and bummed out that they missed the delivery, but they arrived about 20 minutes later so got to see her get assessed and weighed and swaddled up.

After that we moved to my hospital room. I was supposed to be wheeled in a wheelchair but I really didn’t want to sit down, I wanted to walk. The nurse and doctor were really surprised – the only time I lay down was in the tub and the pushing part of labour. I really think that is what kept things moving and made it relatively painless.

Scott and Jen stayed for a little bit and saw the night nurse give Victoria her first bath and I settled in to bed. Chris stayed a little longer but I told him to go sleep at home because there was no place comfortable to sleep in the room. I can’t believe it all happened so quickly.

So the vital info:

Victoria Camille Gould
Born 10:29pm, May 13th, weighed 7lb, 2.8oz, measured 19.5 inches

Here she is at a week old:

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