Sunny’s pregnancy was long and hard, puking did not ease up until the weeks were into the 20s and nausea remained throughout, giving me a brief break around 35wks, but was back again just weeks later. Pelvic instability set in at 14wks and so began months of pain that didn’t ease up until the wee one’s head engaged.


Lots of emotional crap came up throughout the pregnancy, much processing of both Jet and Indy’s births was done (Jet‘s birth was a VERY traumatic hospital birth, and Indy‘s an elective caesarean), contact was cut with my mum, and then later on, when we hit the home straight we hit a bump in the road with our midwives. We had conflicting ideas on how certain things should be handled and the decision to freebirth was made. We were concerned that the person who was going to be the boys’ support person wouldn’t be comfortable with the new plan, and although she was at first okay with it, our feelings were confirmed when at 40wks she pulled out, saying she couldn’t handle it. By this stage however we were not fussed at all and felt confident with our ability to cope with it being just us and the boys, and my good friend Lith who I had become quite close to over the course of Sunny’s pregnancy and whom we had asked to be present (if she could make it in time from 5hrs away and being dependant on public transport!) as our doula.


Despite ending care with them, the midwives still let us hang onto their birth pool which was handy and eliminated another potential stress point.



38wks on the day, I began having regular contractions, some needing to be concentrated on and breathed through, but eventually dying out as I went to bed late that night. Over the next few weeks I continued having cramping and contractions on and off, on a few occasions thinking it was ‘the real thing’, only to have it stop hours later. Between 40 and 41wks I struggled with the stigma of being overdue, as well as being fed up with being pregnant and having contractions that were leading nowhere (well, I know they were, but it was frustrating that they continued to stop and then start again…and repeat) and feeling frustrated and embarrassed that I had called my doula to travel for 5hrs for nothing, although the company and distraction of having her here were very welcome! As I reached 42wks I hit a level of calm where I was able to just be pregnant and let everything else go, feeling that I could go to 43wks and beyond without feeling panicked about it.


Jamie and I noticed that day that the shape of my belly had changed heaps, the baby was no longer sitting to the right side of my belly, instead being smack in the middle and giving my belly a very pointy look. We joked to Lith, who had only returned home from our place the day before, that the baby was sizing up the exit and thinking about making its way out.



In the early hours of Wednesday morning I had some cramping but it didn’t last long so I thought nothing of it…until Jamie and I had a fight over nothing, LOL, and as we climbed into bed still shitty at each other contractions began yet again. Having had so many ‘false alarms’ already I didn’t think too much about it, but managed very little sleep being woken up by them and needing to breath/moan my way through them. It wasn’t until I got up around 5:30am that I thought that perhaps this was ‘it’, because the contractions weren’t stopping with me moving around, as they often had previously and my discharge looked different. Still not wanting to get my hopes up I waited and waited until by 7:45am I decided this was it, the discharge continued and I was needing to concentrate my way through all contractions and so I sent Lith a text message telling her to catch the midday train, that I was having a baby today.



I struggle from now to remember how things happened and when exactly they did, while there were clocks around and I was aware of what time it was, I didn’t look at the clock and immediately think, oh I have been in labour for X number of hours, nor did I look at the clock and remember that stuff happened at that time.


Around the middle of the day I started to get tired and was struggling to find ways to deal with the contractions, I had a cry to Jamie that I sucked at labour and after that I managed to have a power nap. According to Jamie it was only for about 15mins, it felt like an hour to me!!! After the nap I stood up and felt a little gush, nothing Hollywood about it, LOL, and realised that my waters had broken. We rang Lith to let her know, her train had just left the station and she was on her way!
We carried on as we had been throughout the day, I did what I could to get through the contractions…bounced on the birth ball, sat on the couch, sat on the bed leaning over a chair, stood at the bench, leaned against a wall etc, went online to JB and facebook to play scrabble and scramble LOL, my vocalising ranged from panting, to ‘owing’, to moaning. The boys carried on their day like normal, sometimes coming in to see what I was doing, sometimes playing with my necklace, sometimes hugging me, sometimes rubbing my back, sometimes trying to bounce on the ball with me, LOL. Often they made me laugh while contracting which was a really odd feeling, but a welcome distraction as well, on very few occasions (only 2 that I can recall) were they a hindrance…once when Indy headbutt me in the belly mid contraction and the other when they tried to steal my blanket mid contraction.



Lith arrived around 5pm, I know only because I had memorised the train timetable in the weeks before, and we just carried on as we were before. The contractions came in waves, they were irregular and I often had breaks which I welcomed because they usually came straight after particularly intense contractions. I had to change positions and try different ways to get through contractions often, but for the most part labour was filled with lots of laughter and I even felt bored at times. Several times I ask Lith stupid questions like how much longer she thought it was going to take, just to be a smart arse and keep us amused…I also blurt out stupid stuff mid contraction which she took great pleasure in taking notes of…for example, me saying something like ‘this labour thing is pretty easy until a contraction hits’…and another time when a contraction hit and Jamie was taking his time to get to me I stammered frustratedly something like ‘Get. Here. Now. Arsehole!’



Nearing midnight I realised that I wasn’t having a baby that day at all and that it was more than likely that I was going to labour for longer than 24hrs, I was frustrated and had another teary moment with Jamie about how I was sucking at it, and we decided to try and lie down and rest. I managed to sleep for a little while but not as long as I had hoped…I had fantasised about waking up and pushing out a baby rofl. Indy woke up around here somewhere and joined us for a few hours before flaking it on a mattress in front of the heater…I labour on.



Somewhere around 4am it feels like nothing I do is helping anymore, I am exhausted and really over it, I start thinking about getting in the pool but am afraid of getting in too early and slowing things down. By 5amish, I think, I don’t care anymore and want the pool, NOW! So of course when Jamie brings the pool out we realise that its not inflated enough, and if that wasn’t enough to piss me off, Jamie can’t remember where he put the tap connection…despite putting it somewhere he declared he wouldn’t forget…I find it and resist the urge to kill, LOL.



Then he fills the pool…a disappointingly lukewarm temperature…and we run out of hot water, doh! I am thinking just fuck it, and get in anyway as Jamie and Lith boil the kettle and pots on the stove. Despite being too cold and making me shake uncontrollably, getting in the pool was bliss, having the pressure taken off my aching legs and feet…just bliss.



The pool was soon at an acceptable temperature and I continued to do my thing in the pool, frequently having to change positions as the effectiveness of one wore off. In the pool I began puking, at first it was quite horrible, but towards the end of labour I had begun to welcome it because it took the contractions away for a little, LOL.



At around 7am I jokingly asked Lith when she thought the baby would be born, and she joked back that we would have time to get brekky from Maccas. Not long after things really intensify and I start to feel like I am struggling to cope with the contractions, nothing helps anymore and I begin to really yell and SCREAM my way through contractions. I yell stuff like, fuck, get me out, make it stop, help me and in between contractions I start begging Jamie and Lith to get me out and make it stop, that I’m not coping anymore and I don’t want to do it anymore.
Transition sucks, LOL. This was the toughest part for all of us and it felt like it went on forever even though it was only about an hour, by the end Jamie was nearly in tears because there was nothing he could do or say, and Lith pissed me off by being uber calm and telling me how awesome I was etc and I whined and yelled that they weren’t listening to me.


Strange things went through my head during this time, I wondered if this was transition, but didn’t care because it was so hard, LOL, and I also pondered ways to escape…at one pointed I toyed with the idea of saying that I thought there was something wrong with my c/s scar but couldn’t bring myself to because a- it meant lying LOL, b- I had a feeling they would see right through me and c- the thought of getting up and getting out of the pool, then having to try and deal with the pain in a moving vehicle was too much to bear. So I didn’t…instead I went on to say that I wanted to die and would they please kill me. (This reminds me…I had really good manners despite the pain, I often said please and thankyou when asking for and receiving counter pressure on my back, how fucked is that!?!)



When it really seemed too much I was kneeling and leaning over the side of the pool in despair when I felt like I might need to poo…I had pooed often while screaming through contractions already so I didn’t really think it might be a baby, and I was so pissed off at Jamie and Lith for not killing me that I decided that I would just poo in the pool again on purpose ROFL. I started to push gently and my body just went WHOOSH! and took over, I couldn’t have not pushed if I wanted too. After a few pushes I pondered that maybe I was pushing too soon, I couldn’t possibly be pushing a baby out already because I was going to labour forever…I curiously had a gentle feel inside my vagina and was surprised to find that there was something in there! I silently pushed on and within minutes there was a head at the opening! I kind of knew at this point that I was going to tear, I can’t explain it, I just knew there wasn’t enough give and as much as I tried to push gently and slowly, my body took over and pushed like mad.



With just a few pushes the head and shoulders were out and it was a really bizarre feeling having just his body inside, I felt like I couldn’t tell where to push because I wasn’t so stretched and full.



After he was out I turned to look and the first thing I saw was his penis…my first words to my newest little man ‘oh my god, you have a penis!’ During the pregnancy I was sure that I was having a girl, to the point where the baby was referred to as she and often by the name we had chosen, so I was really shocked to see that penis!


And we realised that he had indeed been born in time for a Maccas brekky, LOL.



I sat down in the pool to check him out and snuggle, contractions started again and for a brief moment I thought to myself, ‘oh fuck, here comes the girl’ ROFL. I didn’t really have any urge to push but gave a few little ones to see what would happen and to my surprise the placenta came out. It was a bit weird at this point because it seemed to get stuck 3/4 of the way out, we didn’t want to pull on it for fear of tearing or damaging it, so I spent a while trying to push/move it out. It didn’t budge. In the end I stood up and manoeuvred what I could into the waiting colander where Jamie and Lith checked it out and declared it intact, even though it seemed like I still had some stuck on the way out.



I sucked on the placenta just as a precautionary thing and jumped into the bath to suss out what was stuck…it turned out that some blood clots that were coming out with the placenta had gotten stuck in my pubic hair ROFL. And I also discovered that I had indeed torn, though not where I had thought, and it was declared tiny and fine to leave unstitched later by one of the midwives who I had called after the birth to see if she would take a look.



The intensity of transition left me reeling for a few days, straight after the birth Jamie said ‘why would you do it anywhere else?’ to which I quickly replied, ‘why would you do it at all?!’ LOL.


I am so glad that we freebirthed and I am so grateful to Lith for travelling so far, she was a fabulous presence at the birth and I think things could have been disastrous if I had had different support people trying to get me through transition. 



It has blown me away though after 2 attempts at breastfeeding went pear shaped just how big a difference having a non drugged, born when they are ready, baby makes to getting it established. I was anxious to say the least and it has really been quite easy. He latches on well, there are no struggles with attachment, he is happy and calm and he poos like you wouldn’t believe!!!