Precipitous

When I was pregnant with The Boy, the midwife team handed me a lengthy questionnaire to get to know me, my health, my attitudes towards birth, and a few other details. One of the questions was about my mother's birthing experiences. I dutifully asked my mother how long her labours had been "About five hours with your sister," she said. "And about three hours with you." Adding "But I'm not sure about yours, because I think I slept through some of it."

I related this to the midwives, and their eyebrows rose. "Family history of precipitous labour" she noted on the chart.

I had no idea what this meant, and didn't bother to look it up, either. All I knew is that five hours was FAST and that FAST = GOOD.

The labour part of the having my son was in fact fast; I went from contractionless to fully ready to deliver in about three hours. He wasn't born for many hours later, though, due to some complications.

And I didn't give the precipitousness much thought this time around -- births are all different, and just because one was fast doesn't mean the next one will be. It depends a lot, I've heard, on the position of the baby, and The Girl was for a while in prime delivery position, but she moved around a bunch and so I wasn't counting on her staying there.

(Which is not to say I wasn't hoping like heck it would be relatively quick.)

When I went into labour ten days ago, the first pain hit at 3am. It was so mild I wasn't even sure what it was, and lay in bed ready to go back to sleep when another one came. I rolled over, thinking it was just discomfort; I got up and went to the bathroom to rid myself of the muscle kinks of sleep. After three or four contractions I got suspicious -- it wasn't the pain but the regularity of them. I got my iPhone (what, you don't sleep with your iPhone close by?) and downloaded a contraction timer. (Oh, modern technology, you are a wonder.) Sure enough, four more of them show a regular pattern of about a minute long and four to five minutes apart. But they still didn't hurt, per se.

At 3:45 I woke The Man. I still think it's a false alarm. With The Boy, labour was undeniable: contractions more than a minute long, less than a minute apart. These feel half-hearted by comparison. Still, they were getting stronger -- I breathe heavily through them. He called the babysitter and the midwife, who instructs us to go to hospital as soon as we have The Boy taken care of.

We are still in denial. The Man takes a shower, gets dressed, makes The Boy a lunch, gets our things together. The friend arrives, we chat. I'm still having regular contractions, and they are getting a bit worse, but hardly as bad as last time.

At 4:30, the phone rings -- it's the midwife. She's at the hospital, wondering where we are. We finish things up, get into the car about 15 minutes later. The Man calls the doula -- I hadn't wanted to call her earlier in case it was a false alarm, but since we're going to the hospital I guess it's worth calling. Let's just note for a minute here that I am clearly still in denial, although every once in a while I get a "I don't want to DO this!" panicky thought, so perhaps it's just that I'm a little scared and not wanting to face reality.

I clearly remember that while the contractions kept coming through the drive, we did chat a bit between them, and this normalcy made me feel that things were still just slowly moving along. I emailed my sister about half way there -- time stamp 4:56 am.

We arrive at the hospital about ten minutes later. The Man parks near the labour / delivery entrance, I walk the 50 m to the door. We go inside. The midwife is there, and we need to check in. I remember clearly that I turn to the receptionist and a big contraction hits and all I can think is "I need to lie down!" I think I may have yelled that too, because they hastily take me to the assessment room, leaving The Man to check in.

I also clearly remember that I looked at the midwife as I walked into the assessment area, and said "Your hair looks pretty!" She'd gotten it done earlier the previous day.

It was the last comprehensive thing I said.

I lay on the table, and they start checking me over -- blood pressure, baby's heartbeat, etc. And all I remember is that the contractions start ripping me apart. I'm screaming. I'm begging for drugs. I'm yelling and sobbing that I can't do it. The doula arrives. She and The Man hold my hands, help me calm down a bit. Finally, with one short break in contractions, the midwife checks the progress.

The lifesaver in this whole process is that she says "We're ready to go." If she'd said "6cm" I would have given up.

And then they book it for a delivery room. The delivery rooms in this hospital are upstairs, so while I'm in transition labour they rush me out of assessment, down the hall, into an elevator, upstairs, along the corridor, into a room. I get on the bed, somehow. They give me a few puffs of gas. (Useless crap. It only makes you dopey enough not to care as much -- does crap all for pain!)

Another bad contraction hits but in the middle of it my water breaks and the pain goes from a nine to a five, and I'm so relieved I can't speak, leaving everyone to get soaked.

At the very end of the next contraction, I feel an entirely new sensation: pushing. I didn't get that with The Boy. I'm surprised by its ferocity.

There's another one. And another. And the nurse says, "I think I saw a head!"

And the midwife says, "No, I don't think so."

They both turn back to what they were doing. There's another contraction, and we are all terribly surprised to find, afterwards, a baby lying on the bed. Not just a head out, not just shoulders. The entire baby, all 22 inches of her, pushed out in a single push. There's only a heartbeat before the nurse and midwife are upon her, cleaning her up, putting her on my chest to be held. She's wailing loudly.

It's 5:30am. Two and a half hours after the first contraction. Less than half an hour from when I got out of the car and walked into the hospital.

Precipitous, indeed.

I have to say here that my reaction to this extremely quick and, let's face it, relatively easy birth is relief and great joy. Not just because it's a beautiful healthy baby girl. But because hey! It's all over! Woo-hoo! I'm done! The hard part is done! No more contractions! No more pushing! No more pain!

ha ha ha ha ha

But go look up "precipitous labour" online and you will see the DANGER DANGER DANGER signals everywhere. Babies can be hurt by the extreme muscle contractions. Babies can be denied oxygen. The birth can be so intense as to be traumatic.

The extremely fast exit can damage the mother.

Yeah.

The irony in all this is that the damage to me is almost as bad as it was last time, with the interventions and help and all the stuff they did. They have to piece me back together, and it takes 45 minutes and let me tell you: I had an epidural last time and didn't feel a thing, and MAN, does it SUCK to feel them STITCHING UP YOUR PRIVATE PARTS.

Not something I recommend.

Apparently this is a rarity, this precipitous thing. Less than 2% of births, so say the sites. That's why it's always on the news when someone gives birth on her front lawn, or in a mall, or on the freeway: it's actually very rare.

So I'm ... lucky? I guess. Lucky I don't have to go through four days of contractions without sleep, for sure. Lucky I don't even have to endure it for hours. I had half an hour of agony and it was all over. I'm sure some would envy me that. But it was intense, it was a bit traumatic, and the healing process sure ain't easy. Nor is it, ten days later, over with.

And there are dangers, to be sure. We avoided most of them, came out on the good side of things.

Lucky.

But I tell you one thing: labours apparently get faster with each subsequent child, so it's a good thing we're not having another. I'd probably have her or him in bed 20 minutes after waking up.

Or maybe that would be a good thing.