Note: some of the details in this section are somewhat graphic - not for the faint hearted!
We woke up the morning of Tuesday 6th May (two days after Seoras’s due date) about 10.30 when the phone range. While Neil was answering it, I realised I was having contractions. It wasn’t the first time as I had had 10 days of prodromal labour (and indeed was already 3 cm dilated after episode of strong contractions 9 days earlier). So I tried to nap a while longer, but pretty soon it became hard to sleep through the contractions. As the day went on they became stronger and more regular, but I was still unconvinced that it was “the real thing”. Eventually, about 3pm, Neil persuaded me that they were indeed becoming stronger and closer together. “Real labour progresses” had been what we had been told and this was definitely progressing, so we phoned our Midwife, Sarah, who arrived just before 4pm.
I was still managing to walk around and breathe through contractions, but by 5.30 was anxious that it wasn’t ‘the real thing’ again. Sarah did an examination and I was still only 3cm, but she thought the contractions were having an effect and Seoras’s head was definitely lower. I decided to get into the birthing pool and Neil or Sarah rubbed my back through each contraction.
At 8.30 I was 6cm dilated and Sarah was able to confirm that Seoras was positioned just right. Things were definitely happening. I stayed in the pool, which was a great help but I could have done with it being about 3 inches deeper (six inches would have been even better) as it was difficult to get my back under whilst kneeling, which was the most comfortable position. We experimented with pouring water across my back through each contraction, but that never worked great.
Sometime around then my mother phoned and Sarah answered the phone as Neil was in the pool rubbing my back. We hadn’t planned on telling her until much later on, but it kind of gives the game away when the midwife answers the phone!
Some observations about the labour. No matter what Neil ate he got in trouble: cheese and onion crisps and pepperoni pizza were the most vile things I had ever smelled and he was sent off more than once to clean his teeth! I was OK with the essential oils I had bought, though I ended up not using them much as I intended because it was kind of difficult as I was in the pool. I did put some clary sage on a tissue, but next time I will have a supply of cotton hankies for the purpose, since paper tissues don’t appreciate wet hands! The other thing that really surprised me was that the jet on the pool (which heated the water) really really annoyed me. So we ended up turning it off completely and regulating the temperature with buckets of water. Prior to going in to labour I had found the jet was really good for lower back pain.
By 11.30 I was fully dilated and asking for entonox (“gas and air”). I was reaching the point where all I wanted to do through was scream each contraction and entonox took the edge off that (so I didn’t scream through *every* contraction, just some of them). Unfortunately Sarah only had one small cylinder, which lasted something like 90 minutes. I (and the neighbours) would probably have benefited from more! I guess that was transition.
During the time I was using the entonox we all became aware of a lot of noise in the hallway outside our front door. Neil went to investigate and discovered someone was doing a "midnight flit" (moving out literally at midnight!). At least it provided a diversion for the neighbours in our block of flats.