At the request of ed I have decided to write about Bear’s birth in water. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed that.

I feel the need to start this by telling you I loathed pregnancy. I always thought that I’d be glowing with new life for nine months, at one with the universe. How wrong was I?! 9 months of nausea and I was more than ready for it to end.

I woke of at 6am one morning with back pain. After a few moments it passed and I fell back to sleep. It woke me again at 9am and I decided it was time to get up. I suddenly had an inexplicable need to clean my house from top to bottom, but because of the back ache I was finding that difficult. Lucky Hubby decided that if I had to clean the house, and I really did, then I wasn’t going to do it alone and insisted he did most of it. (Bless him) It was after that that I noticed the back ache wasn’t permanent but came in waves. It’s now 1pm and I’ve just realised that I might be in labour.

After calling the hospital I took their advice and had a long bath before putting on my Tens machine. For those who aren’t familiar with this piece of equipment a Tens (which stands for Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) machine delivers electrical impulses across the skin as a way of treating pain. It stimulates the production of endorphins and tries to fool the brain into thinking that there is no pain. It didn’t alleviate it entirely but it definitely helped. The midwifes had informed me that it could still all stop so I didn’t want to worry anyone. My mother however insisted on driving down to us (we lived about 100 miles apart at the time) saying that if it all stopped she could drive back the next morning before work! We all retired for the night but I couldn’t sleep because of the pain. Instead I went down stairs, sat on the workout ball to try and keep the labour going, and did sudoku puzzles while watching Red Dwarf.

It was a good job Mum had driven down as I went into hospital at 3am the next morning. I had planned for a water birth but you can‘t go into the water until you are 6-7cm, I was only 3. I spent the next 4 hours walking, swaying and pacing in the family room while Hubby complained about the awful choice of music on late night TV.

Luckily by 7am, as the shifts changed, I was ready to go into the birthing pool. Its also lucky that they had a midwife in who was trained to use it, as that’s not guaranteed, and that no-one was currently in it. The contractions were getting quite painful now, and they were no longer only in my back but travelling into the top of my legs. It wasn’t really pain there but an intense form of pins and needles and had Mum and Hubby massaging my thighs, and I was really beginning to wonder if I could put up with that. I knew I could cope with the back pain, but this sensation in my thighs was completely different. After the first contraction I felt in the water though,  those concerns went. I was able to float through the pain and it helped more than the Tens machine.

The midwife I had from that point to Bears birth was fabulous. She was middle-aged with cropped hair and a wicked sense of humour. Hubby went to have breakfast and put some money on the meter. From this point on I truly enjoyed my labour. We chatted in between contractions and during them my mind seemed to take me to a different place. I felt high even though I hadn’t been given any drugs, not even gas and air, and in that you can see the power of endorphins. Hubby returned after about 45mins complaining about the bacon sandwich he’d had in the hospital canteen (when asked about Bear’s birth now he still mentions that bacon sandwich), which us girls thought was hilarious. Next door we heard a women scream as if she was being mauled and the midwife turned to me and said, “Don’t worry about that. I’m pretty sure she’s fine.”

Soon my contractions grew stronger and I had to start breathing through them. Just concentrating on my breathing helped just to take the edge off the pain. At 11:30 the midwife was concerned that I wasn’t progressing properly as I didn’t seem to be in as much pain as I should be. When checked I was 9cm. No-one expected things to progress as fast as they did then. 10mins later I told them I wanted to push. They told me I wasn’t ready yet and to breath through it. I managed to resist for 2 contractions and then my body just disconnected from my mind and took over. Between pushes I mind seemed to float away and I actually fell asleep once, coming to hear the midwife telling Hubby “She’s fine, just resting. Just be sure she doesn’t drown and it’ll be fine.”

At 11:56 Bear was born. I had only pushed 4 times. As I gave birth I reached down and pulled her up onto my belly. She was beautiful. I announced that she was a girl, we didn’t know until that point, and felt more than euphoria. That was my moment of clarity when I knew that being a mum was the most important thing I would do with my life, my destiny.  My midwife offered to do a homebirth for me next time, something poor Hubby paled at. He was very proud though and when he got home went on his on-line community and posted a thread with the title, “And You Thought You Were Double-Hard B*stards”. The downside being that he now believes most women make more fuss than necessary over child birth.

I chose a water birth for one reason. I thought that if I gave birth in water it would be easier for Hubby who gets more than a little squicked by the mess that accompanies a new life, and that worked to a degree. What surprised me was the amount of pain-management induced by the water. Natural, drug-free childbirth isn’t for everyone, and every women should do what’s right for her. This worked for me, and if I’m lucky I’ll be able to do it the same way next time.