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Home › Diaries › Eloise › December 2, 1999

Eloise's Diary Entries

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December 2, 1999

Pixie Bella’s birth story.

It all started at 4 a.m. on Thursday morning, 25th November, 1999.

I’d stayed up past midnight the evening before watching a strange old black and white movie that had me mesmerised. Hubby was studying for his final exam which was to be the following day. I went to bed only to wake up three and a half hours later with a really intense pain. Feeling a little shocked and panicked I woke my husband and we dubiously wondered if I was having a contraction. I looked at the clock.

Three minutes later, on the dot, wham. Another contraction.

Okay. I get up. Is this the real thing or false labour? I go to the toilet. No sign of waters breaking or mucus plug. The pain feels a lot like cramping – it’s a similar feeling to muscle spasm/cramps I’ve had in my calf muscles throughout pregnancy. Only these are in my belly.

Three minutes later. Wham. Another.

The pains are bad. But not too bad. I lean over the toilet bowl and vomit. Short and sweet and once only. My tummy is empty now. My husband times my contractions. They last between 30-40 seconds. I move around, trying to find a comfortable way to deal with them, still thinking they’ll disappear as suddenly as they appeared, that this can’t be the real thing because I’m not quite ready for it. I’d only half packed my hospital bag after all, and hubby still had two days of work and one exam to go. Nope, we’re not ready yet. Next week would be better.

Three minutes later I realise babies don’t wait until it’s convenient to be born. They have their own time-table. Wham. It was beginning to seem like this might be the real thing!

Hubby is timing the contractions. I make him religiously write down the time that every single one starts. It makes me feel better. They’re like clock-work. Three minutes apart. Every single one.

We look up our pregnancy and birth books. I have a vague recollection that once contractions are regularly three minutes apart you should go to the hospital. I walked (or should I say stooped and shuffled) round and round the flat. Moving seemed to ease the contractions a little.

By 5:30 I figured we’d better ring the hospital as every contraction was still three minutes apart and I was suddenly panicked by visions of having the baby on the bathroom floor. A midwife spoke to me and said I was most likely at the very early stages of labour, despite the contractions being so regular and only three minutes apart, and that I should stay home, eat, rest, keep walking and ring back in an hour or two.

Well, I tried to eat a little cereal and fruit. I was hungry. But every now and then I got a really intense contraction. The bad ones felt like a steel vice tightening around my middle. The body would tense up and convulse and I’d need to grab onto something to support myself. I spent a lot of time sitting on the toilet as having my bowels open felt a little better. I’d stand up with every contraction and grip onto the cold steel towel rail as the vice tightened and my insides convulsed.

I was beginning to expel a lot of mucus. Most of it was jelly-like and resin coloured, but when one gob was tinged with blood I called my husband over to look at it and knew, without any further doubt, that this was the real thing. I was in labour. God willing this baby would be born today. I asked my husband what the date was -- 25th November. My exact due date if you counted forty weeks from the 4th of March – the day I assume I conceived. (Mind you, the hospital had my due date at 28th November – based on date of my last menstrual period.)

Around 8 a.m. we rang the hospital again. They asked if my waters had broken and when I said they hadn’t (to my knowledge) they told me to stay home a bit longer.

Round and round the flat I shuffled. On and off the toilet I hopped. My urine had a strange odour to it but I didn’t twig that it would’ve been my waters breaking and dribbling. I was waiting for “the gush.” Hubby followed me around with a steaming hot face-washer which he applied to my lower back with every contraction. The heat really seemed to diffuse the pain somehow. But some of the contractions were really bad. I started swearing at hubby and abusing him. I felt irritable. Tired. I wanted to rest but still the contractions kept coming. By this stage I’d had four-five hours of contractions every three minutes. It was starting to physically and emotionally exhaust me.

I was desperate to rest my legs and my aching back. All I wanted was to lie my head down, close my eyes and have a little snooze. But lying down seemed almost impossible. My body was terribly uncomfortable and when I lay down, or even kneeled down, the contractions seemed to get much worse and the body convulsions were horribly violent and spasmodic and felt out of my control.

I remember once I knelt down and rested my head on a cushion on the bed and I closed my eyes for a few moments and drifted miles and miles and miles away. Into outer space. All was peaceful. Time was lost. I was swimming in a warm fog. Ages seemed to pass. It was such a relief to be at peace, to be resting. And then, wham, a contraction hit with such horrible force, it seemed twice as bad as any before it. I struggled onto my feet and tried to walk, tried to move, tried to find a way to ease the pain. But that’s the worst thing about the bad ones. NOTHING eases the pain. Nothing stops the body from feeling like it’s being squeezed by the cold hard bands of steel. Nothing stops the abdomen and internal organs from seizing and convulsing uncontrollably. When it was over I asked hubby how long it was between the last contractions as I felt like it had been a long time, maybe even ten minutes. To my shock it was exactly three minutes. I was beginning to lose sense of time. Reality was slipping away. I was starting to inhabit a strange twilight zone.

At 9 a.m. I got hubby to ring my mother and let her know things had started. She told Jai to tell me that I was now free to “get on with the job.” Somehow this little joke cheered me up, but damn it, the contractions were becoming excruciating now.

I tell Jai that no matter what the midwives say, we’re going to the hospital by midday at the latest – a little under three hours away – as I don’t feel like I’ll cope at home much beyond that.

We talked a little about our fear that this was just the beginning of the whole ball-game and that I was worried that it’d go on for 24 hours or more and that this pain was merely the tip of the ice-berg (I feared this because the midwives at the hospital kept telling me I was only at the beginning stages).

A little after 10 a.m. I had the strongest most violent contraction yet and a squirt of bright red blood shot down my leg. I called hubby and we both agreed that that was it, we were going to the hospital no matter what the damn midwives said. My husband called them and very forcefully told them we were coming in. He ran around throwing a few last minute things in my suitcase. I felt a little better (psychologically, that is, not physically). Finally something was happening.

Hubby pulled the car out of the garage and clinging to my v-shaped pillow I gingerly stepped outside. It was a fiercely bright clear morning – sunny, warm, the day was buzzing and it seemed to be in strange contrast to the weird netherworld I now mentally inhabited. It was horrible to get in the car and be forced to sit through the five-ten minute drive through busy shopping streets on a bright clear morning. I clung onto the hand-rail above the door and tried to breathe through my contractions – I was thankful I didn’t have a really bad one until we reached the hospital.

At the hospital they tried to make me answer questions at emergency reception – you know, name, address, medical details, etc. -- but I was in a bad state – groaning and panting and clinging to the counter as contractions ripped through me every three minutes. There was a young woman in the waiting area who wouldn’t stop staring at me. I thought it was highly rude and desperately wanted to poke my tongue out at her but who had time for such pleasantries in my condition? Still, I really must’ve been a worse sight than I realised, as the receptionist rang through to delivery and said, “We have a very distressed lady down here.” I didn’t think I was that bad!

So upstairs I go, insisting on walking rather than putting my convulsing body in the wheelchair. They show me into a room and help me up on the bed where I’ve got to lie down and have a few straps tied to my tummy to measure the contractions and the baby’s heartbeat.

It is hard to lie down. It’s not comfortable but I’m a little relieved to be in the hospital so I manage to tolerate it. Hubby returns from parking the car and stands beside me, gripping my hand and looking terribly emotional. The midwife encourages me to breathe through the contractions and surrender to them, not tensing my abdomen. I succeed once or twice but basically this seems like an impossibility. The pain and convulsions are just too damn strong. It’s like a steel vice is squeezing me – my whole body shudders and every muscle convulses with the pain and I can’t move – I feel trapped like an insect under a pin – helpless in the steel vice of pain. Yet, it passes. Out of every three minutes I get 1-2 that are pain free. I savour these moments.

After a while I begged to have the monitor straps taken off so I could go to the toilet. I felt strangely restless, like I had to move despite my body feeling completely out of my control. In great pain, and with terribly slow progress and a lot of support I hobble to the toilet. Once there the midwife leaves me and I stare into the toilet which might as well be a million miles away. There is just no damn way I can lower my body onto the seat, and yet the pressure in my bottom is really intense. Finally the midwife returns and I’m in quite a state. She suddenly realises how far gone I am. She helps me walk back to the room, saying to me, “Well, I think you might be ready to push this baby out.”

This shocks me. Crikey, I’d only been at the hospital an hour or so. She asks me if I want any drugs (believe it or not I hadn’t thought to ask for any when I arrived at the hospital). I asked when she’d advise me to have an epidural. She said “now.” I thought, “Crikey, am I really at the point of pain where I’m allowed to have an epidural?” Little did I know, eh?

She insisted on examining me first -- which wasn’t really painful, just damn awkward. Well, I think to everyone’s surprise I was found to be 7-8 centimetres dilated. The midwife suddenly seemed to treat me differently. With more respect. She told me I’d be having this baby soon. I was still a little stunned. It seemed to be too late for an epidural so she offered me the gas tube saying, “I think you can get through this with only the gas.” I was amazed. Was I really going to get through this more or less drug-free? Had I really gone through 7-8 centimetres dilation without any kind of pain relief? Even I was a little in awe of myself and my husband was almost in tears. He was proud of me for being so brave. Truth was I was really a little bit naive. If I’d known it was as bad as it was going to get I would’ve arrived at the hospital for my epidural hours ago.

Anyway, the gas was FANTASTIC. Finally I had a crutch. Finally I had some way of trying to deal with the pain. I suck on the gas tube as though my life depends on it. It becomes the sole focus of my mind. Getting the gas into me before the contractions hit. I get into a rhythm. I am mistress of the gas tube!! It is a brilliant triumph. Now when the contractions and convulsions hit I can move. I can thrash my legs around. I can groan. I hear myself from miles away. I am groaning loudly, out of control, like an animal. It is gratifying. I squeeze hubby’s hand before each rising wave of pain and I suck, suck, suck. When the contraction reaches its peak I cannot suck on the tube because I have to groan like an animal. It feels good, I’ve finally got some way of coping.

The time for pushing arrives. The midwife gives me instructions. I have to grab onto my thighs with each rising contraction, take a deep breath, and push with all my might. Well hell, it is horrible to have to curl up and grab onto my legs when my body is in so much pain. I can barely do it, although pushing feels quite good. I can’t really feel the contractions when I’m pushing. But it’s damn hard work. I’m exhausted and all I want to do is suck on the gas. I don’t want to have to do any work. I’m beyond that. I just want this to be over now.

After 20 minutes or so of trying to push, the baby’s head showing, then slipping back in, the midwife calls the doctor to come and check me out. The doctor tries to get me to push. A lot of conferring is going on. I suck on the gas. I don’t care about anything else. Eventually the doctor suggests I need some help and that she wants to use the ventouse vacuum to help get the baby out. I agree. I don’t care even though it means cutting and stitches and stirrups and needles. The doctor is really nice, supportive and young and female and I trust her.

There is much activity in the delivery room. Two doctors, a midwife and a student doctor. All women, all busy fussing around. It feels good to have them all around me, busy trying to help. I am relieved not to have to push the baby out. I just know, deep inside, I can’t do it. My legs are put in stirrups (which the doctor apologises for, which I appreciate) and pulled apart. I don’t care. I ask if I can continue having the gas, the doctor laughs and says, “Of course, you’re entitled to the strongest drugs you can get at this point in time. I’d give you heroine if I could.” (At least, that’s what I think she said.) It feels like she’s plunging a fist inside me and then the needles come out and I’m anaesthetised ‘down below.’ The needles sting but hell, I don’t care. I’ve got a new mantra running through my head – “It’s going to be over soon. It’ll all be over soon.”

She gives me an episiotomy (I’m not aware of it, though), and then the vacuum is attached to the baby’s head. It all feels rather awkward but not painful. I’m still sucking on the gas. I’m told to push, which I do, half-heartedly, expecting the vacuum to do most of the work. Which it does. I feel pressure and then a swoosh. They’re all telling me the baby is out. A few moments later she’s put on my chest. They tell me she’s small. I think, “Of course she’s small, she’s a Pixie.” She has a mop of dark hair and she looks plump to me. She’s curled up on my chest and she looks good. Jai and I talk to her and I laugh with relief. She’s here. It’s over. After 10 hours of labour my little “Pixie Bella” is born and she’s okay. Better than okay, she’s exquisite.

There is still stuff going on ‘down below.’ I’m being stitched up and then I deliver the placenta (well, I can’t guarantee it was in that order.) Soon it is over and the doctors and midwives leave, amongst congratulations and thank yous. We are left alone with Pixie before we are both cleaned up. I don’t feel over-emotional like I expected I would at this moment. I just felt relieved, and hungry. I was starving. Famished. Exhausted. Like I could eat and eat and eat all week. That’s all I wanted to do. Gaze at my baby and eat and feel good. It was over. I’d survived. I had my baby. Life was good.

Afterwards a few people asked me if labour and giving birth was as bad as I’d imagined it. The truth was I expected it would be painful BEYOND anything I could imagine. I’d tried to imagine the pain beforehand, I’d listened to women’s descriptions and tried to conceive of it. But I thought it would be beyond imagination. I was expecting a version of the burning fires of hell.

But it wasn’t worse than I could imagine. It was exactly as bad as my imagination had conjured. Bad but not unbearable. No, it wasn’t unbearable. I don’t feel traumatised about it. Not at all. And that’s despite having stitches and shocking hemorrhoids from trying to push baby out, making it hard for me to sit down still, one week later. Every muscle in my body ached for days afterwards. But I’m here. I survived. My baby is here and we’re happy. It was only 10 hours of my life. Ten hours of pain for a lifetime of joy with Pixie. It’s an easy price to pay. And nothing to be afraid of. My only advice to any women expecting out there is this, SAY YES TO GAS!!

I’ve got heaps more to say, about Pixie and what life during her first week has been like, about our time in hospital and much much more, but I’ll save it for next week. It’s 1.30 in the morning and my baby usually keeps us up all night but is sound asleep at the minute so I think I’d better join her. Let’s just say she is gorgeous and funny and we’re all on a steep learning curve at the minute. But I’ll tell you all about it next time, my first diary entry on the Babies Today site, hopefully.

So adios, pregnancy. It’s been great but now the REAL ADVENTURE begins. After all, pregnancy is merely a prelude, a means to an end... and that end that is a brand new beginning… my baby’s life has just begun and somehow Jai and I have to learn to become parents. Good parents. The boy, judging it so far, it's going to be strange and wonderful journey.

So until next week,

All the best



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