Coming to Acubalance for cervical ripening treatment helped prepare my body for birth. About a week and half before Julia Pauline was born I was starting to have contractions. Sometimes they were mild and sometimes they were painful but it was all manageable. A few times I thought ‘this is it I am going to have this baby’, only to find out it was just false labour. I found out on May 20th that I was 3 cm dilated and that my cervix was very ‘ripe’. I knew that labour could happen soon or not for a couple of weeks as my due date was May 29th.
On Friday May 22nd my husband and I picked up our daughter from day care. As we were making dinner, I went to the washroom and my water broke at 5 pm! Since it was my second birth the midwives wanted me to call them as soon as my water broke. We called the midwives and they said to call back when contractions started. Within 20 minutes the contractions started. My husband called back the midwives to tell them to come over to our house. He then called our friend who would be taking care of our daughter while I made sure our daughter ate dinner. I enjoyed the distraction while the contractions were getting stronger.
We had never said for certain that we would have a homebirth. Since we had really enjoyed birthing most of the time with our previous daughter at home before heading to the hospital we wanted to try having a home birth. Our friend came over and we sent our daughter to the park. I turned to the midwife and said ‘I am not sure I can stay home because I am worried about my daughter’. The midwife kept telling me ‘this is your second baby and you will give birth to this baby in 2 hours.’ I clung to this phrase as I drank PowerAde and ate berries to try to fuel for the intense work out to come.
Around 6:00 pm I went into the shower. My husband stood outside the shower and pushed on my back during contractions. The contractions started to get more intense and painful. With each contraction I decided to submit to the pain and relax with each break in between. I even had a few laughs with my husband during the breaks. Since the contractions started getting more and more painful the midwife checked my cervix. She did not tell me how much my cervix had dialted. I am so glad she did not tell me as I was only 4 cm!!! I would have given up if I had heard I was not progressing because the contractions felt like I was much further along. She just kept telling me we were having this baby soon.
Eventually we went to the bedroom as I was starting to feel faint from the heat of the shower. We tried a bunch of different positions and I was squeezing my husband’s hand through each contraction. The contractions got so painful that I felt I needed to push but I did not feel like the baby was low enough yet. I cried to the midwife that I was exhausted, it felt so intense. I was worried because it felt like the baby was still too high for me to push. I found out after the birth that I was 7 cm dialated and was still not in transition. The midwife got me to stand up and lean on my husband. He held me through some painful contractions. All I wanted at this point was to quit but then I remembered that meant the baby was coming soon so I got excited. I just needed to make it a little longer. I just kept focusing by thinking that I wanted to meet this baby now!!
Then I felt like my body was telling me it was ready to push. Within a short while of pushing, listening to my body and using all the energy I had, I met Julia Pauline at 7:50pm. I could not believe that from the time my water broke it had only been 3 hours!!! My husband and I looked at our daughter while we sat in our bed. My daughter came home from the park at 9 pm to meet her little sister. We all cuddled on our bed. It all worked out perfectly!!!
I can’t thank Ryan enough at Acubalance as I truly believe that his cervical ripening treatments helped prepare my body for birth.