This is the birth of our third little baby, Lewie Lennox who was born in August 2021. His labour was long, a whole 35 hours long and tested me on so many levels emotionally.
I had noticeable, irregular contractions lasting two hours every night for a full week before it all “really” started, then on the Thursday before he was born, the contractions started and they never stopped until Saturday morning at 7:21 when Lewie was born into the water in hospital.
I was somewhat aware that this labour could potentially be “longer” as Lewie was sitting in a bit of a posterior position (ROP) and also being my third baby, I had heard that the labour could be a bit of a wildcard, but boy did it make me work mentally.
The entire Thursday night I was awake with contractions that came every 5-30 minutes. They were sore when they came lasting a minute each but had no consistency whatsoever. I was quite confused by this as it could be contractions coming every 5 minutes lasting a minute for an hour, to then nothing for 30 minutes to then back down to coming every 5 minutes again, it was full on!
By 5am, I was exhausted, but the contractions eased off to coming every 10 minutes and became way less painful and this lasted for the whole day whilst I just tried to rest, and get into all of the positions from spinning babies just to get me through the day.
By 10pm, my contractions were sore and I really had to sway through them as they were mostly all in my back, this is when I called my midwife just to let her know what had been going on but with really no regard that I could be in actual labour. I called her exhausted though, hoping she could give me some tips to get Lewie into a better position and to speed things up a little and she encouraged me to continue with the different positions but to not feel discouraged if this continued for another night or more as it sounded super normal for the position he was in.
I took her advice and tried to just rest as much I could & utilise the exercises/positions throughout the contractions still coming super irregularly (sometimes 3 minutes apart, other times 20 minutes apart).
By 1:30, I was so defeated, the contractions were noticeable in pain but the timings of them were what was getting me down. It was so hard mentally just to think that it could still be a while left and it was so hard not to obsess over the timings that the contractions were coming, especially as I would get super excited when they got close but then in the next moment they wouldnt happen again. Clay ran me a bath and I decided to just spend some time in there to just try and rest my body and my brain but by 3:30am I was so done.
My middle son, Oaklen had also woken up during this time and decided to have a 1am party for 1.5 hours so whilst I was having a bath, Clay was with him so when Oaklen finally fell asleep, and Clay was able to come back I just wanted to go and get checked at the hospital just to make sure everything was okay & get somewhat of an idea of ways I can get through the next few days.
We got into the hospital at 4:45 and although we didnt have the midwife I had been seeing my whole pregnancy, I was greeted by the midwife, Stef 🥰 who actually helped me birth Addison which was pretty amazing! Just before she checked everything, she reassured me that this type of labour was super normal for the way that Lewie was sitting and to not feel discouraged if I was still in the early stages. I was expecting to be in the early stages to the point we didnt even bring our hospital bags from the car. I said to Clay no way am i doing the walk of shame with all of our bags when they send us home! 🤪
She checked everything and said “well youre definitely not going anywhere tonight!” I was 6cm and officially in active labour. Thank bloody goodness. The whole room shifted at this point, I was stoked. I cannot even describe the feeling because I was so beyond happy to finally know that the last few nights were actually for something. Clay was super happy as well and quickly messaged the student midwife, Payton who had been looking after us the entire pregnancy to make her way to the hospital.
I continued to use the techniques to continue to encourage Lewie to get into a better position using the toilet seat and the exercise ball.
The interesting thing about all of this is the fact that again, my contractions were not regular, at all. It was actually super confusing as you hear so much about how the contractions should get closer together for labour but this is not what was happening at all. The waters were completely buldging as well, so I felt like I could hardly walk, it was ridiculous. And then the contractions coming 3 minutes apart then 10 then 5. Just crazy and super super frustrating as well.
At about 6am, i decided to get into the bath as the contractions were starting to get really intense, however when I got into the bath, although helping with the pain, when there was no contractions it felt like we were all just waiting around for another contraction or for my waters to break but it was such long intervals between them that at about 7am, my waters feeling so extremely heavy, I asked if they could just break them then and there, and basically they broke so quickly.
This is where it all ramped up, and it moved quick, my waters were broken and I spent about 10 minutes outside of the bath moving around to try and encourage Lewie to still move into a better position but to also bring on the contractions faster because I was so ready by this point and honestly just over the waiting. I could already feel myself wanting to push almost immediately after my waters had broken, he was so far down that I basically got back into the bath and well, started pushing Lewie out!
Stef encouraging me through said, “next contraction I think he will be here”, but Payton quickly said afterwards “his head is already out!” Another contraction came, another push and our beautiful baby boy was born into my arms, into the water!
He was here, this beautiful little soul, after the most emotionally draining, beautiful, hectic, crazy labour, our little boy completing out family was here.
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