My husband and I found out that I was pregnant about 2 weeks after conception (probably only a day or two past when my period was due). SURPRISE!  We had only been married about 6 months and hadn't planned on having kids untill at least a year later but we found we were happy and excited all the same.

    We confirmed the pregnancy with a doctor at a walk in clinic- we didn't want to wait untill after the weekend to know for sure (it was a Sunday). The doctor said she would give us a referral to an OB/GYN and get back to us in about a week.  The week went by and then another and we got no answer.  I called them and the secretary said she hadn't gotten to it before she went on vacation the week before but that she would find someone by the end of that week.  I wanted a female OB/GYN and wanted to deliver at Women's College Hospital.  That week passed, and then another again (I was now six weeks pregnant) and I called them back again.  They said they were working on it and I would know in a couple days.  To make a long story short, I waited another 6 weeks before they finally did it.  At which time they said I couldn't have a female doctor, or deliver at Women's College Hospital because it was too late!  Frustrated, I made an appointment with the OB/GYN they did find for me, Dr. Paul McCleary-head of obstetrics at Wellesley Hospital, which had just been bought by St. Michael's catholic hospital.

    My early pregnancy went beautifully, I had no morning sickness and didn't gain more than 5 pounds for the first 4 or 5 months.  I felt great and my usual weak immune system fended off every kind of illness.  I can't remember ever feeling better.

    I was already over 3 months pregnant when I went for my first prenatal visit.  At that visit, I learned that I would be delivering at St. Michael's hospital because the brand new (less than 5 years old!) birth unit at Wellesly had been closed due to cutbacks a few months before.

    By the time I was 4 months pregnant we found out that I was carrying a boy.  We were elated.  A few of our friends felt we shouldn't have found out the sex of the baby before having him, but we felt that there were still plenty of surprises to be had and knowing the sex would make him seem more real, we could stop referring to him as "it" and do some more organized preparation.

    We quite liked our OB/GYN but as we did more and more research into the birthing process we realised that a doctor assisted birth wasn't for us.  I wanted to be comrfortable with the person delivering my baby and while I quite liked Dr. McCleary, he wouldn't necessarily be the one delivering the baby.  Also, we were concerned that while Dr. McCleary was willing to listen to our birthing plan, we had no guarantees that the doctor on call would be, and we felt that during labour would be the worst possible time to have to argue about what we wanted.  (Especially considering that neither I nor my husband are very good at assertiveness under fire).  Lastly, I wanted a support person there the whole time, my husband was very worried about whether he would be able to handle seeing me in pain, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to handle it easily either.

    After doing a little research we found a group of midwives who could take us, and transferred our care in month five.  I was thrilled to be with our midwife, Merryn Tate, and even more happy to hear that she had birthing privileges at Women's College Hospital.  The rest of the pregnancy went really well, I don't have enough good things to say about midwifery care.  The visits were long and leisurely and afforded plenty of time for questions and just general conversation, strengthening a relationship between my husband and I and our midwife.  In month seven we were introduced to two other women who would be present at our birth.  Sylvie LeMay, our second midwife, who would be delivering our son if Merryn was at a birth and would come at the end of the delivery regardless to care for the baby while Merryn cared for me, and Edan, a midwifery student (we consented to having a student involved in our care and were never sorry, Edan was very professional and capable and we got along splendidly).

    We took both the prenatal course offered by the public health nurse and the one offered by our midwifery group.  We found the one offered by the midwifery group far superior.  There was more time for questions, we got to hear plenty of different angles and the birth movies we watched were actual past client's births (used with their permission of course).  We could recognize the midwives and had a much more realistic view of birth without drugs.  When I first went into the pregnancy I was sure I'd want drugs, but as I did more research I decided that the risk and inevitable complications of painkillers wasn't for me either.  Particularily convincing was a study cited in a book called "The Magical Child"  I would recommend that book to any parent as it covers all ages from pregnancy on.  Also, as we became more comfortable with the pregnancy and our midwives, we began to think that we might want to have the baby at home.

    Of course, as soon as we began to consider having our son at home, we were put in a crunch because he would not turn.  At 33 weeks we began to discuss possible methods of encouraging him to turn.  Finally, at 35 1/2 weeks, only days before we were going to try externally attempting to turn him he flipped over.  He was so big by this point that I felt it quite clearly when it happened.  It felt incredible!  We moved closer to deciding to have a home birth and were almost ready to consent when my blood pressure rose.  If there are any complications in a pregnancy regardless of how minor, midwives will not deliver the baby at home so we resigned ourselves to a hospital birth.  By the next appointment however, my blood pressure had dropped back down and it stayed down.

Only a day before the cutoff to decide on a home or hospital birth (37 weeks) we decided to stay home.  We felt very secure in this decision since we live in the middle of the city, within minutes of more than one hospital and would be able to get there rather quickly should anything go wrong.  Probably in less time than it would take the hospital to prepare an OR or an ICU bed.  We went out and purchased our hombirth supplies, (those blue pad things, gauze, receiving blankets, plastic sheets olive oil for perineal massage etc..) and sterilized the sheets and receiving blankets we would be using and the waiting game began.

    My due date came and went and I began to take herbal supplements to help labour come.  I drank rasberry leaf tea like it was going out of style and took a variety of homeopathics and waited...and waited...and waited.

    On November the 6th, 9 days after my due date (and incidentally, my father's birthday) I woke up at 4:30 am needing to use the washroom.  I stood from bed and felt a trickle of warm liquid on my leg.  At first I thought my greatly stressed and squished bladder had leaked a little..untill trickle turned to gush. We had just renovated our house and put new carpets in the bedroom and my first reaction was for the carpet!  I jumped back into bed, effectively soaking it and woke my husband.  (He was hard to wake, I told him three times my water had broken before it sunk in)  We decided since the contractions weren't that hard, that we would try to go back to sleep.

    Two contractions later they were hard and coming 5 minutes apart.  We paged our midwife.  She told me to stay out of the bathtub since my water had broken and to page her if the contractions got harder or faster quickly.  She was going to finish her night's sleep and get her kids off to school and she would be over around 8:30am (it was about 5:30 at this point)  We got up and had a little breakfast and made the bed ready for delivery.  At 6:30 the contractions were REALLY hard.  I began to think I was crazy to want to do this without drugs.  We paged our midwife again.  She said it sounded as if I was just entering active labour and she would see me in a couple hours.  She offered some much needed words of support and reminded us to page her again if we had any concerns at all.  The contractions stayed five minutes apart but got more and more intense.  At 7:30 am I told my husband that if this was only the very beginning of active labour that I wouldn't make it through transition and I wanted to go to the hospital and get drugs.  He paged our midwife again and told her that.  Her words were "I'll be right there".  By 8 am she was at our house.  She was surprised at how intense the contractions seemed and told me to get into bed so she could examine me.  I was already at 4 centimeters, from nothing at the appointment we had on the 5th.  She assured me that I was making very quick progress and that drugs would slow down the labour and would be unnecessary anyway since the labour wouldn't last that long.

    My mother, mother-in-law and grandmother (who was a midwife and nurse starting at the beginning of WW2) arrived within the next hour and all there was to do was ride out the labour.  Over the course of the labour I took 3 or 4 showers (my memory is a little foggy) I walked around quite a bit and soon got into the swing of the contractions.  Pretty soon I was able to cope with them pretty well.  By about 11 am I was 8 centimeters dilated.  Merryn explained to me that the contractions I was feeling were symptomatic of what she called a "Transitional labour" and that although they were very strong, they were doing a lot of work with each one.  Basically it was as if I was going through the transition phase for the entire labour.  Believe it or not, this was a relief, as it meant that although I may have only been entering active phase hours before, the pain wouldn't get that much worse and it didn't.

    By noon I was feeling a premature urge to push, but was still only 9 cm dilated.  I laboured on the toilet of all places for about an hour and a half before moving to the bed because the urge to push was getting quite strong and we needed to slow it down since I still had about a half centimeter left to go.  After a few strong contractions, which were hard to keep from pushing during, Merryn stretched my cervix the last centimetre.

    I loved the pushing phase.  After so long of wanting to push, it was such a relief to finally be getting the baby out.  After a while of pushing however, it became evident that the baby was not going to fit without an episiotomy, a procedure midwives scarcely ever use.  Merryn explained to me that if I didn't have one, I would tear upwards, which could destroy my clitoris.  I was dissapointed and frightened, but consented as soon as I could get the words out.  The episiotomy didn't hurt a bit and our son was born completely on the next push.  At 2:46 pm.  He let out a lusty wail immediately and when they laid him on my stomach, he peed all over me!  (not that I cared)  I looked over at my husband and saw that he had tears in his eyes.  Immediately I asked him "are you okay?"  which was met by laughter all through the room.  I think the birth was harder on him than on me.  The next thing I said was "Well, I think I deserve presents"  ;)

    My husband took our son downstairs while Edan stitched up the episiotomy and some tears (including a very small upward one).  We all had lunch together and took some pictures and all the midwives hugged me before leaving for the day (they do follow up visits the next day, 2-3 days postpartum, 5 days postpartum, and 2 weeks postpartum).

    I felt so exhilerated!  My son was 20 inches long and 7 lbs 9 ounces at birth.  He was healthy and alert, holding his head steady from birth (something most naturally born babies can do)  I felt like dancing in the street! (of course, I could scarcely walk)

    Basil Alexander Baldwin (fondly, Baz) is now 4 1/2 months old and continues to thrive.  I am so glad we had him at home and without drugs.  I couldn't imagine travelling to the hospital while having those strong contractions, and couldn't imagine packing up and travelling back a mere 6 hours later (The average hospital stay in Toronto these days).  I also feel that the energetic and euphoric feeling I had after his birth (which lasted for two days) and the incredibly alert baby were so much more than worth the little extra pain during the labour.  If (when?) I do it again, I wouldn't want to do a single thing differently!

    ~ Denielle Baldwin

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