Fast and Furious

Fast and furious: the best way to describe the way that my second daughter entered this world. It was a Monday and it was my due date, and I was anxiously awaiting my labour to begin. I don’t know about you, but I started getting antsy at about the 37 week mark; just generally uncomfortable and unhappy and really desperate for the baby to come out.

Many of my friends happened to be due around the same time as me, and they had all had their babies already, which just downright pissed me off and only added to my impatience for her arrival.

I was teary, and emotional and miserable. I decided to lie down to take a nap in the afternoon instead of burdening my husband and other daughter with my out-to-here-pregnant misery. I woke up from my nap a few hours later and noticed that I was having some very mild cramping. I ignored it; started to make dinner and continue on with my day. As we were eating dinner, the cramping became more intense, and the pains were more regular, so I excused myself from the table and started timing the contractions.

About 30 minutes later, my contractions were about 5 minutes apart and lasting a solid 45 seconds each time. So I called my parents over to watch my daughter and my husband and I made our way to the hospital. When I got there, the nurse asked me about my contractions and checked my cervix, and at that time informed me that I was not dilated at all and what I was experiencing was not labour, she suggested that I was probably just having Braxton Hicks contractions.

I told her that I was fairly certain that this was not false labour because the intensity of the contractions was too strong, and that I didn’t feel comfortable going home. Her exact words to me were “I’m not buying it”. She told me to go home because she was not going to admit me. I didn’t feel comfortable going home because my first labour had been fairly quick (as far as first labours go) and the nurse had warned me then that my second labour would most likely be much quicker. The nurse told me that I was welcome to sit in the waiting room, but she was not going to admit me because “there was no way that I was in labour”.

So, we sat in the waiting room and waited….but not for long. My contractions became increasingly intense and were coming harder and faster all the time. About 45 minutes later I sent my husband to get the nurse and when she came back to check on me, she found me keeled over against a chair barely able to speak because my contractions were so intense. She did a quick examination of me right there and said, “Oh ya, you’re in labour, this baby is coming right now”. So she put me into a wheelchair and wheeled me down the hallway screaming. I couldn’t actually sit in the wheelchair because I could feel my daughter’s head crowning. I got into the birthing room and somehow managed to get myself up onto the bed and my body automatically began to bear down.

The nurse told me to stop pushing because the doctor had just been called from his home and was not at the hospital yet and that she could not help me. So I grabbed my own knees and pushed with all my might and my beautiful little baby girl came skidding out onto the bed. She came out with such force that she actually “surfed” along the top of the mattress and her head bumped (gently) into the footrest at the end of the bed. It was really something. Eventually the doctor got there, and he took one step into the room and said, “Well I guess I didn’t need to be here”. He came and took a look at my lady bits to determine if I needed stitches, decided that I didn’t, bid me farewell and left. That was it, fast and furious.

I found out later that I had what is known as a precipitate delivery, and it can be very dangerous to both Mother and baby, but we were both happy and healthy, and I was so glad to have that beautiful little girl in my arms.

xo Michelle

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