Birth in Suburbia, Carol Falaki [electronic reader .TXT] 📗

around her stomach and down the front of her thighs.
“Spoke too soon,” she said, and her grip on the back of her chair tightened.
“Try to keep your shoulders low, if you can,” her mum said. “I know it’s not easy but it does feel better if your muscles aren’t all tensed up.
Harry looked up, uneasily, from his paper.
“I hope you’re doing the right thing here,” he said, “Staying at home for this,” and glanced over to Maggie, who again pretended he hadn’t spoken and continued to watch Liz.
Liz had to use all her powers of concentration to keep from tightening her muscles, because when she felt the pain rise she tensed up with apprehension. It was a full minute before she was able to answer him.
“Don’t worry, Dad, we can get to the hospital pretty
quickly if we need to. I feel good here. It’s where I want to be.” Her baby gave her a reassuring thump.
“Thanks little one,” she said. “I know you’re there.”
After breakfast she went up to her room where she played some music and tried to rest. She managed to doze for a few minutes, but was unable to sleep because of the backache and irregular contractions. Maggie had put a new decorator's sheet over Liz’s mattress, and under her bedding, some weeks earlier. It had disposable plastic one side and some sort of soft paper on the other.
After an hour of attempted rest, a small burst of excitement came to her. This is really it, she thought. Oh hell.
She decided to try sitting on her birth ball. Liz had found this to be quite comfortable lately. It caused her to sit up straight, eased her back and gave her a little more room under her ribs. When a contraction came she found that rocking on the ball helped.
Her mum opened the bedroom door cautiously. “I thought I heard you moving around. How are you doing?”
“I’m fine, this rocking helps.”
“Why don’t we bring it downstairs? You can watch television or chat to me if you want. A little diversion might be good for passing the time, and take your mind off waiting for the next contraction. Let me know when you are ready to put your TENS on.”
“Okay. Another contraction’s coming. I think I’m
ready for this one.” Liz said with a grimace. When it subsided she asked,
“Is there any news about Helen yet?”
“Nigel rang half an hour ago, they've had a baby girl. Chloe, she was nine pounds and half an ounce. He was thrilled, but very tired. They'd had a long night.”
“How is Helen? How was her labour?”
“Helen is fine, she had an emergency section. I wasn’t sure whether to tell you or not. I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Poor thing, I bet she is worn out. But she’s okay, you are sure?”
“Yes, she’s fine.”
Liz didn’t know why Helen had needed a section, and she didn’t want to think about it, not right now. She had read that at home, where there are no hospital staff and no machinery, there would be less likelihood of any interference with the process of her labour. That’s what she wanted, and that’s why she was here, sitting on a large blue ball in the middle of her bedroom.
“Hearing what happened to Helen makes me so sure that I want to be at home to have this baby, if I can mum,” she said.
Liz went downstairs and found that the kitchen was a good place to be when she had a contraction. There she could lean over the worktops, or a chair. Harry came down in his allotment clothes.
“I’m getting out the way,” he said. He had not been
with Maggie for the birth of Liz and of her brothers, who had been born in hospital at a time when the presence of the father in the delivery room had been discouraged.
Today he was unsure if he could handle seeing his little girl in pain.
Liz kissed her dad goodbye and attempted to reassure him.
“Don’t worry, Dad, we’ll be fine,” she said, speaking for herself and her baby.
During the course of the morning Liz took a few short walks around the garden, enjoying the air and the flowers and smiling in acknowledgement at the blackbird busy digging her beak into the ground for grubs and worms to take home to her young. Liz also spent time resting on the settee, and the birth ball, in front of the television. At this stage of her labour distractions did help pass the time.
Liz found that some things helped her to cope with the contractions more than others, like leaning forward, or rocking, but every now and then she would have a contraction so powerful that it took all of her powers of concentration to stay calm, to acknowledge and accept it for what it was, to let it happen and let it pass. Then she was waiting for the next contraction. Rachel called in at 12.30PM and Liz was glad to see her. Rachel was about Liz’s, in her late twenties, friendly and easy to talk to. To Liz the most important element in their relationship was that
Rachel listened to her, and respected her wishes. Liz felt she could trust Rachel. She had spoken to friends who had not felt the same about their midwife.
Rachel checked Liz over, taking her blood pressure, temperature and pulse; she then felt her abdomen, first for the position of the baby, then for the contractions. After a contraction she listened in to the baby’s heartbeat. Liz said a silent prayer through all of this. More than anything she wanted to stay home to have her baby, any problems and she would have to go to the hospital.
At last Rachel said: “Everything seems fine,” and Liz and Maggie breathed a sigh of relief. “So far,” Rachel added.
“It is time to examine your cervix again, Liz, if you don’t mind,” Rachel said. “Those contractions are quite regular now, and they feel fairly strong to me.”
Liz couldn’t help saying: “Only fairly strong?”
Rachel smiled, but said nothing. She knew that Liz’s contractions would become much more powerful, but all being well this would happen over a period of time. This would allow Liz to become accustomed, to work with them, and to adjust, accept and not resist.
“You are doing really well,” she said finally, to Liz, when the examination was over.
“Four centimetres, thin central and well applied, station minus two. That is all good. I’m not sure of your baby’s position. I could only feel one suture line and no
fontanel, but judging from what I felt on your tummy, I think he or she, is left lateral and that’s okay.”
“What makes it hurt so much?” Liz asked her.
“It’s thought to be the stretching of the cervix that causes most of the pain. The contractions pull the neck of the uterus up and the baby’s head stretches it, like the neck of a tight polo neck sweater. The neck of the uterus is sensitive to being stretched and that is why you feel the pain. Tensing your muscles can make it feel worse, although relaxing is very difficult in the circumstances,” Rachel explained.
“Sometimes the position of the baby can cause extreme backache. If that happens, kneeling and leaning forward and rocking, like you’ve already been doing, can take some of the weight and pressure off your back. Massage can help, although you might come to a point when you don’t want to be touched.”
Rachel still had some post-natal visits to do, so she had a cup of tea and left, after first making sure they had her mobile number. She promised to return after the rest of her calls, sooner if Liz needed her.
“Any problems, don’t hesitate to call me,” she said. “Or if things suddenly start to hot up.”
“You mean if I want to push?”
“Yes, definitely that,” Rachel laughed, but also if you want some pain relief, like an injection of pethidine.” Rachel had left a box which she assured Liz had everything they would need in it; she had also brought a large blue canister of nitrous oxide, complete with mask and tubing. “Gas and air,” she explained, “this is
for much later on,” This sounded ominous to Liz, who was already thinking of time in terms of how many more contractions.
Rachel seemed to pick up on this because her parting words for Liz were: “Don’t think ahead if you can, just work with what is happening now.” Liz nodded and made herself a promise that she would try.
Liz was leaning over the kitchen cupboard rocking her pelvis, while practising the breathing techniques learned at the active birth session a few weeks earlier, when Leo arrived to see how she was. It was two o’clock.
At first he was visibly shocked to realise that Liz was really in labour; to see she was in pain, and he suffered a brief moment of fear, for Liz, for her baby, and for his own helplessness. Then, the contraction he had just witnessed subsided, and he found his voice.
“How are you doing?”
“Bloody awful,” Liz said. “It hurts; it seems to involve the whole of me. Don’t expect me to talk to you when I’m having one.
“You could put the kettle on, Leo,” Maggie said.
“Do you need the hot water already?”
“If you want to do something useful, make us all a cup of tea.”
“For tea,” he said, and Maggie whispered to him,
“I’m anxious just like you.”
Maggie had been massaging Liz’s back
during the past few contractions, and Liz found this to be a soothing distraction, although it didn’t take the pain away.
“Have you eaten?” Leo asked.
“We had breakfast, but I’m not really hungry at the moment,” Liz said. “Although I’ve just remembered those ice pops in the freezer, I could manage one of those.”
Maggie fetched her one and suggested to Leo that he could make them both a sandwich. She gave him directions round the kitchen while she massaged Liz’s sacrum through the next contraction.
“Do you mind me being here?” he asked Liz when it was over.
Liz was wearing her loose fitting track suit, and felt she looked respectable enough.
“No it’s nice to see you. You might take my mind off things for a bit. Perhaps we could try a game of cards or something.”