Harrison’s 90-minute journey
“Putsu putsu putsu tap, I would like to meet you. Katsu katsu katsu tap, I would like to meet you too.”
The evening before Harrison was born, I had a tune to those words going around in my head. They are from a favourite book of Madeleine’s and mine called When It Is Time, a lovely Japanese-styled story about a chick hatching.
Warren was at work until 9.30pm or so, and I had just put Madeleine (5 years) to bed. It was two days before my due date and sporadic contractions made me think and hope that something might happen that night.
I sewed on a button that had sat for some time, made Madeleine’s lunch for school the next day, re-read the labour notes from her birth and got out some tiny new baby clothes to put on the oil heater just in case.
Contractions were coming eight to 10 minutes apart, quite ouchy, and I emailed Warren at work to tell him, adding that they would probably fade away again.
“It feels like the night before Christmas,” he said when he got home at 10.30, as I showed him where I’d put the suitcase with the birth kit in it. We muddled around getting ready for bed but by midnight the contractions had picked up to two to four minutes apart.
Warren asked if he should start filling the birth pool that was already set up in the lounge. I thought it might be too soon, but within just a few minutes changed my mind and was desperate to get in it.
The contractions left me holding on to the kitchen bench, rising up on my toes trying to escape them. I called my mother to come and my midwife, Jacqui Anderson.
I tried to time the calls so they were between contractions but Jacqui, in her wisdom, made me stay on the phone and talk through one. She could hear that I was feeling pressure from my moaning and got to the house within 15 minutes.
Warren, meanwhile, was stuck at the kitchen sink, holding the hose onto the tap so the birthing pool could fill. The pool had been such great pain relief during Madeleine’s birth that I just had to get in it.
I couldn’t bear for anyone to make noise or move during contractions, but of course Jacqui had to set up her emergency gear and get ready for the birth.
I was really roaring and felt quite out of control, with a lot of pain over my pelvis. The water in the pool was rising slowly but Jacqui warned I might have to get out so the baby wasn’t born half in and half out of the water. It was only slowly dawning on me that the baby might be coming soon.
Poor Madeleine was woken by all my noise. My mum had arrived and found her crying in her bedroom. She was soon brought through to the lounge where she rallied after seeing I was OK. I could smile at her between contractions and she knew her brother or sister was on the way.
The urge to push came strongly and with the pool just deep enough, I pushed the baby out in four or five contractions. Jacqui passed him to me and he lay calmly in my arms, finally taking a breath after a bit of rubbing. I saw it was a boy as he was being passed to me but Warren, Madeleine and Mum had not seen and were delighted when I took my arm out of the way and showed them.
“It’s going to be ‘Harrison’, isn’t it, Mum?” Madeleine said, even though we hadn’t decided finally on names.
Within a few hours, with the placenta born and the baby fed (and checked, weighed and dressed) we were all tucked up for the night. Madeleine in her bed, sleeping soundly before school the next day where she was to excitedly tell the class her big news. And Warren and me in our bed with the baby between us, too enchanted by him to sleep and instead happily getting used to the idea that we were now a family of four.
Harrison was born at 1.25am on Wednesday 27 June 2007, weighing 6lb 5oz (2850g).
Published in Birthplace Magazine
Last updated 19 March 2009.