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Do you have a Kensington Midwives experience you'd like to share? Or maybe a photo? We love hearing from you and seeing your pictures! You can email stories and photos to kmw@kensingtonmidwives.ca
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Matt and Ruth's Story
Friday, August 9, 2013
I am so happy to be able to finally share my birth story even though it has taken me 3 months and a few days over since my son was born.
When birthing our first and second children, I coped through medical technology. Both experiences were mostly negative, which I guess is what we were expecting anyway.
So for our third child, we wanted to try something different. We got hooked up with the amazing wonderful people at Kensington Midwives. Their care and nurturing concern for us and the nascent little human freed us to look at childbirth in a different way. Not as a medical condition to deal with, but as an act of creation to enjoy and experience. So when the contractions started on Thursday, April 25, I was excited to greet them with Zen-level mindfulness.
I played with my contractions as they grew and spilled over onto Friday. I would see each one coming and, instead of bracing against it, I would breathe and watch. I would mentally acknowledge the contraction, thank it for preparing my body for birth, and gratefully send it on its way. And it worked. We spent the day doing all the same things she had been doing since before the pregnancy began—walking, jogging, taking the stairs, getting hot oil massages and having wild sex. Pretty much normal life for us.
On April 27th, 2013 , In the wee hours of the night, I woke up. The contractions had been steadily growing in intensity and consistency and had reached a point where I was having some difficulty managing while in bed. I woke my vigorous husband at 3:00am, who drew me a bath and vigorously went back to bed. I spent half an hour in the tub, rolling with the contractions as they went through her. After a time I got out and started pacing the house, kneeling, squatting, going on all fours, searching for a position that would give me a bit of an edge as I dealt with the tension. And even though I had to move around the house and use all of my mindfulness to get through them, they were bearable. Not only that, it was enjoyable and I was glad to have the opportunity to face them alone. I woke my husband at 4:20 and he called the midwife. The time was close.
I almost called too late. Our on-call midwife, Sara, was half an hour away. Sara arranged for Houley, another wonderful midwife from Kensington Midwives, to come as well, because she was already in the area finishing up another birth. Houley arrived just as Matt finished setting up the bed for birth. She did all the lovely midwifery stuff that midwives do, and told me that if I felt like pushing I might as well go ahead and do it.
Sara, our main midwife, arrived at 5:00am, jogging with her big backpack of midwife gear.
Isaiah Dev arrived at 5:08am.
Sara caught our son as he came out and handed him to Matt who rested the child on Ruth’s belly. He was warm and slippery, covered with the broth he had been cooked in. And that was it. There he was.
Our other children were born in good, modern hospitals—the first in Canada, the second in Pakistan. Both were very safe, highly professional places. Sanitary, organized, business-like. Both births were very much like watching a mechanic work on your car. There was no magic, just mechanics. We didn’t touch our children until they were appropriately cleaned and prepared. And even then we had to give them back so they could endure some time under that blindingly warm light with that odd goo on their eyes. The doctors who delivered our children disappeared immediately after it was over. Sara stayed with us for hours. The doctors told us what choices to make. The midwives gave us information and asked us what choices we wanted to make. In the hospitals I was a patient with a condition to be cured. With the midwives, I was a holy person creating another person.
Sara and Safire at Kensington Midwives completely blew our minds. We never expected the level of care they gave us. Because of them and all the other midwives and students and staff at Kensington Midwives, I not only endured my pregnancy and labour, I enjoyed them. Labour stopped being a painful thing to get through, it became a rare and vibrant experience to drink in. It was not labour. It was birth.
We learned things.
We learned that labour is not a trial to be endured—it is an experience to revel in.
We learned that your mindset will determine a large part of what your experience will be.
We learned that everything goes better with mindfulness and everything goes worse with worry.
The midwives played the greatest role in shaping our new way of looking at this whole thing.
That’s our story. We cannot thank the people at Kensington Midwives enough. Thank you for showing us how powerful a mother can be. Thank you for being a part of our person-making project.
When birthing our first and second children, I coped through medical technology. Both experiences were mostly negative, which I guess is what we were expecting anyway.
So for our third child, we wanted to try something different. We got hooked up with the amazing wonderful people at Kensington Midwives. Their care and nurturing concern for us and the nascent little human freed us to look at childbirth in a different way. Not as a medical condition to deal with, but as an act of creation to enjoy and experience. So when the contractions started on Thursday, April 25, I was excited to greet them with Zen-level mindfulness.
I played with my contractions as they grew and spilled over onto Friday. I would see each one coming and, instead of bracing against it, I would breathe and watch. I would mentally acknowledge the contraction, thank it for preparing my body for birth, and gratefully send it on its way. And it worked. We spent the day doing all the same things she had been doing since before the pregnancy began—walking, jogging, taking the stairs, getting hot oil massages and having wild sex. Pretty much normal life for us.
On April 27th, 2013 , In the wee hours of the night, I woke up. The contractions had been steadily growing in intensity and consistency and had reached a point where I was having some difficulty managing while in bed. I woke my vigorous husband at 3:00am, who drew me a bath and vigorously went back to bed. I spent half an hour in the tub, rolling with the contractions as they went through her. After a time I got out and started pacing the house, kneeling, squatting, going on all fours, searching for a position that would give me a bit of an edge as I dealt with the tension. And even though I had to move around the house and use all of my mindfulness to get through them, they were bearable. Not only that, it was enjoyable and I was glad to have the opportunity to face them alone. I woke my husband at 4:20 and he called the midwife. The time was close.
I almost called too late. Our on-call midwife, Sara, was half an hour away. Sara arranged for Houley, another wonderful midwife from Kensington Midwives, to come as well, because she was already in the area finishing up another birth. Houley arrived just as Matt finished setting up the bed for birth. She did all the lovely midwifery stuff that midwives do, and told me that if I felt like pushing I might as well go ahead and do it.
Sara, our main midwife, arrived at 5:00am, jogging with her big backpack of midwife gear.
Isaiah Dev arrived at 5:08am.
Sara caught our son as he came out and handed him to Matt who rested the child on Ruth’s belly. He was warm and slippery, covered with the broth he had been cooked in. And that was it. There he was.
Our other children were born in good, modern hospitals—the first in Canada, the second in Pakistan. Both were very safe, highly professional places. Sanitary, organized, business-like. Both births were very much like watching a mechanic work on your car. There was no magic, just mechanics. We didn’t touch our children until they were appropriately cleaned and prepared. And even then we had to give them back so they could endure some time under that blindingly warm light with that odd goo on their eyes. The doctors who delivered our children disappeared immediately after it was over. Sara stayed with us for hours. The doctors told us what choices to make. The midwives gave us information and asked us what choices we wanted to make. In the hospitals I was a patient with a condition to be cured. With the midwives, I was a holy person creating another person.
Sara and Safire at Kensington Midwives completely blew our minds. We never expected the level of care they gave us. Because of them and all the other midwives and students and staff at Kensington Midwives, I not only endured my pregnancy and labour, I enjoyed them. Labour stopped being a painful thing to get through, it became a rare and vibrant experience to drink in. It was not labour. It was birth.
We learned things.
We learned that labour is not a trial to be endured—it is an experience to revel in.
We learned that your mindset will determine a large part of what your experience will be.
We learned that everything goes better with mindfulness and everything goes worse with worry.
The midwives played the greatest role in shaping our new way of looking at this whole thing.
That’s our story. We cannot thank the people at Kensington Midwives enough. Thank you for showing us how powerful a mother can be. Thank you for being a part of our person-making project.
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Joanne's Birth Story
Friday, July 12, 2013
It's been almost 8 months since my life changed forever. My name is Joanne and I gave birth to my wonderful boy at home, and my amazing midwife, Safire, made it happen.
My husband and I got married in 2011 and we decided to wait until winter arrived to go on our honeymoon, as we both love to travel and we both especially love to travel to warm countries during winter. We decided to visit South America, specifically Argentina, Uruguay and Chile and we had 3 weeks to enjoy this special time. And we did. We never planned to become pregnant, we believed that the universe will bless us when we are ready, but little did we know that we were ready on our honeymoon.
A week before our trip ended, we found out we were pregnant. We were both incredibly happy, a
little stunned, but overall we felt incredibly blessed to have a honeymoon baby. For whatever reason, I always knew we would have a boy and as hard as we wanted to keep it a surprise, I wanted to know if I was right - and I was. I have always been fastinated by homebirth and after reading pretty much all the books that Inna May has written, watched as many homebirth videos as possible, read articles, research, etc... I was 100% sure that is what I wanted for my son. It
was important to me to have a midwife that can support my natural journey and encourage me throughout the whole time. Becoming a mother truly is a transformation and I felt the journey to get there needed to have the right energy, wholesomeness and spirituality. I was very lucky to find a midwife at Kensington Midwives, as we all know how difficult it can be to find care with a
midwife. Fatima was incredible and supportive and set me up originally with Linda, however after a month of care, I was transferred to Safire.
I was super happy that happened, because we connected right away - we had the same passion for natural birth and I was thrilled to see how encouraging she was. I had a fantastic pregnancy and I felt humbled every day to be able to create a life, to help it grow and to experience what I was experiencing.
My estimated due date was October 30th and as "cool" as it was to have a Halloween baby, I knew he wasn't ready to join us yet. I wasn't nervous about being induced, because I knew I would have the support I needed to ensure he was healthy and "free" to come when he was ready. I also knew I wasn't going to wait too long either...
I started experiencing surges Thursday evening, November 1st. We were watching football and I was more introverted than ever. I felt he was getting ready to be in my arms. Throughout the whole pregnancy, I was able to connect and communicate with my son on a emotional and spiritual level that I never thought possible.
In any event, I knew those surges were not practice surges, but I have very high pain tolerance and I really didn't feel it was necessary to put any focus on them yet. We went to bed and around 1am, my water broke. I was extatic, I closed my eyes and told my son: "babe, we are about to do this, me and you, together... are you ready". I felt he was, so I decided to go lay down, since it was 1 in the morning and I figured it will be a while. I was practicing my breathing through
each surge and I was surprisingly very relaxed. But excited... too excited to sleep. I didn't want to tell my husband my water broke, as I wanted to make sure he got his rest, and also didn't want to scare him either.
I went in the other room and decided to start dancing. I put Bob Marley on the computer and decided to sway my hips. During each surge, I would wine harder and remember all those times I used to love dancing to reggage and kep telling myself, this wining is good for the hips. :)
I was trying to keep myself in a positive and fun spirit. I lit up some candles and incense. It smelled so amazing, and the room had this warm feeling about it.
Around 3:30am, the surges got really intense where I had to stand in hands and feet at times. I
really enjoyed this time by myself... it was my way of spiritually welcoming my son into the world. It was our intimate time together. I kept thinking how proud I am of myself to have the courage to experience this. At 4:30am, I decided to time the surges and I was surprised to see they were 3 minutes apart. Wow! I am actually in labour! I decided to wake my husband up, because I felt I was progressing quite quickly. He was SO excited! I decided to keep myself busy and inflate the birth tub, while he was filming me. It became hard work at this point to carry a conversation, and while labouring on the toilet (my favourite place for a while!), I noticed blood, so I paged Safire. It was 6am and surges were 2 minutes apart. She advised me she will be there soon and around 7:30-8:00, she was there.
This is where I completely disconnected myself from the outside world and embarked in the most
incredible transition that I have ever experienced - the one from being a woman to being a mother. I was not connected with the outside world, my eyes were closed the whole time and I was welcoming my son how I knew best. Interestingly enough, my husband took some videos and I looked really relaxed, but I was working with tremendous energy. I was making some interesting primate sounds and allowed my body to follow my mind, I moved, groaned, danced, stood still - it was a celebration of life and love. I got to 10cms quite rapidly and I was experiencing surges that were 20 seconds apart and some didn't even have a break. They were powerful and I felt telling myself how powerful my son must be to need such intense energy to enter the world.
I envisioned water birth, so my husband and my doula were filling up the tub with water and when I entered, the surges weren't so intense. It was like time stood still for a moment, and I used the energy from the water to keep going. All of the sudden, I felt the urge to push and I had to ask Safire if I am doing something right. She assured me, after checking me, that I was indeed ready to push and my body is telling me to do that. After a while, for some reason, I was not comfortable pushing in the water anymore, so I used the birthing stool and eventually, I
asked for help to be carried to my bed. This is where, after about an hour of intense pushing, at 2:05pm, my son, Ariyan Ilie Bhaloo was born. Thanks to Safire's guidance, I had absolutely no
tearing and it was her strong, but calming voice that gave me the energy to push, because I felt incredibly exhausted. She helped my husband pull Ariyan out of me and she placed him on my chest.
It was that moment that I felt true extasy. The cocktail of emotions and hormones were the passage to understading and becoming a mother, the true existence of unconditional love.
The postpartum visit from Safire was very pleasant, and she answered any questions I may have had. I can't stress enough how lucky I was that she was my midwife and I am confident whoever has her as their midwife, will feel the same, she truly has a gift.
My husband and I got married in 2011 and we decided to wait until winter arrived to go on our honeymoon, as we both love to travel and we both especially love to travel to warm countries during winter. We decided to visit South America, specifically Argentina, Uruguay and Chile and we had 3 weeks to enjoy this special time. And we did. We never planned to become pregnant, we believed that the universe will bless us when we are ready, but little did we know that we were ready on our honeymoon.
A week before our trip ended, we found out we were pregnant. We were both incredibly happy, a
little stunned, but overall we felt incredibly blessed to have a honeymoon baby. For whatever reason, I always knew we would have a boy and as hard as we wanted to keep it a surprise, I wanted to know if I was right - and I was. I have always been fastinated by homebirth and after reading pretty much all the books that Inna May has written, watched as many homebirth videos as possible, read articles, research, etc... I was 100% sure that is what I wanted for my son. It
was important to me to have a midwife that can support my natural journey and encourage me throughout the whole time. Becoming a mother truly is a transformation and I felt the journey to get there needed to have the right energy, wholesomeness and spirituality. I was very lucky to find a midwife at Kensington Midwives, as we all know how difficult it can be to find care with a
midwife. Fatima was incredible and supportive and set me up originally with Linda, however after a month of care, I was transferred to Safire.
I was super happy that happened, because we connected right away - we had the same passion for natural birth and I was thrilled to see how encouraging she was. I had a fantastic pregnancy and I felt humbled every day to be able to create a life, to help it grow and to experience what I was experiencing.
My estimated due date was October 30th and as "cool" as it was to have a Halloween baby, I knew he wasn't ready to join us yet. I wasn't nervous about being induced, because I knew I would have the support I needed to ensure he was healthy and "free" to come when he was ready. I also knew I wasn't going to wait too long either...
I started experiencing surges Thursday evening, November 1st. We were watching football and I was more introverted than ever. I felt he was getting ready to be in my arms. Throughout the whole pregnancy, I was able to connect and communicate with my son on a emotional and spiritual level that I never thought possible.
In any event, I knew those surges were not practice surges, but I have very high pain tolerance and I really didn't feel it was necessary to put any focus on them yet. We went to bed and around 1am, my water broke. I was extatic, I closed my eyes and told my son: "babe, we are about to do this, me and you, together... are you ready". I felt he was, so I decided to go lay down, since it was 1 in the morning and I figured it will be a while. I was practicing my breathing through
each surge and I was surprisingly very relaxed. But excited... too excited to sleep. I didn't want to tell my husband my water broke, as I wanted to make sure he got his rest, and also didn't want to scare him either.
I went in the other room and decided to start dancing. I put Bob Marley on the computer and decided to sway my hips. During each surge, I would wine harder and remember all those times I used to love dancing to reggage and kep telling myself, this wining is good for the hips. :)
I was trying to keep myself in a positive and fun spirit. I lit up some candles and incense. It smelled so amazing, and the room had this warm feeling about it.
Around 3:30am, the surges got really intense where I had to stand in hands and feet at times. I
really enjoyed this time by myself... it was my way of spiritually welcoming my son into the world. It was our intimate time together. I kept thinking how proud I am of myself to have the courage to experience this. At 4:30am, I decided to time the surges and I was surprised to see they were 3 minutes apart. Wow! I am actually in labour! I decided to wake my husband up, because I felt I was progressing quite quickly. He was SO excited! I decided to keep myself busy and inflate the birth tub, while he was filming me. It became hard work at this point to carry a conversation, and while labouring on the toilet (my favourite place for a while!), I noticed blood, so I paged Safire. It was 6am and surges were 2 minutes apart. She advised me she will be there soon and around 7:30-8:00, she was there.
This is where I completely disconnected myself from the outside world and embarked in the most
incredible transition that I have ever experienced - the one from being a woman to being a mother. I was not connected with the outside world, my eyes were closed the whole time and I was welcoming my son how I knew best. Interestingly enough, my husband took some videos and I looked really relaxed, but I was working with tremendous energy. I was making some interesting primate sounds and allowed my body to follow my mind, I moved, groaned, danced, stood still - it was a celebration of life and love. I got to 10cms quite rapidly and I was experiencing surges that were 20 seconds apart and some didn't even have a break. They were powerful and I felt telling myself how powerful my son must be to need such intense energy to enter the world.
I envisioned water birth, so my husband and my doula were filling up the tub with water and when I entered, the surges weren't so intense. It was like time stood still for a moment, and I used the energy from the water to keep going. All of the sudden, I felt the urge to push and I had to ask Safire if I am doing something right. She assured me, after checking me, that I was indeed ready to push and my body is telling me to do that. After a while, for some reason, I was not comfortable pushing in the water anymore, so I used the birthing stool and eventually, I
asked for help to be carried to my bed. This is where, after about an hour of intense pushing, at 2:05pm, my son, Ariyan Ilie Bhaloo was born. Thanks to Safire's guidance, I had absolutely no
tearing and it was her strong, but calming voice that gave me the energy to push, because I felt incredibly exhausted. She helped my husband pull Ariyan out of me and she placed him on my chest.
It was that moment that I felt true extasy. The cocktail of emotions and hormones were the passage to understading and becoming a mother, the true existence of unconditional love.
The postpartum visit from Safire was very pleasant, and she answered any questions I may have had. I can't stress enough how lucky I was that she was my midwife and I am confident whoever has her as their midwife, will feel the same, she truly has a gift.
My Birth Story
Friday, July 12, 2013
It all started on Wednesday February 6th(the day before my due date) when I went to prenatal yoga and Sasha (the teacher) and the ladies sang a blessing for me and some others that were due that same week. I believe this was the catalyst for my labour! I certainly did not have any kind of impending feeling that I would be having my baby anytime soon – I definitely didn't think she was coming the next day! Right after yoga, I started experiencing menstrual-like pains but thought it was just pelvic pressure which I had gotten many times before. After yoga I went to the Art Gallery at 2pm with my best friend Sarah and while there I got more of these "cramps" which we later realized were contractions. I hung out with Sarah and her husband all day and started recording the contractions at 5pm. They were pretty irregular and short throughout the evening so I didn't think too much of it. They got stronger and closer together by about 9pm but I was still hesitant to admit this was labour, in case things all of a sudden stopped. I didn’t want to get too excited! So I continued writing down each one (some were 6 min apart, some were 12 min, then 4 then 8 - super irregular). At about 1130pm, I took a
shower and a Gravol hoping to get some sleep, in case this turned out to be real labour. I also called my mom to give her a heads up in case she had to make her way to Toronto that night which is a 3 hour drive from my hometown of Chatham. Needless to say I couldn't sleep because the contractions were too strong. At about 12:30am, my mucous plug came out and I could barely breathe through the contractions - I knew this was it! I called my mom back at 130 who
(not) surprisingly had not slept since I called the first time. I then called Sarah to come over who had agreed to support me through the labour while I was waiting for my mom.
At 2:30am, contractions had been 4 min apart and lasting 45–60 seconds for about half hour so I called my midwife (Annabel was on call). She listened while I experienced two contractions on the phone and said she and her student Laura would be over as soon as they could! Sarah tried feeding me an apple but I could only eat one slice every few minutes. I really couldn't stomach anything at this point except water. Luckily Sarah had made me a delicious chickpea curry earlier that night! My roommate made me some "labour-ade" (miso, honey, lemon, water, crushed calcium and magnesium) to take to the hospital and this ended up being a life saver
throughout my labour as it was the only thing I could consume.
The midwives arrived around 3:30am and watched me through two contractions before they did an internal exam to check my dilation. Boy was that painful! They said I was 3-4cm dilated already. I was so happy to hear that! We decided to get ready to go to the hospital. Since I didn't think I was going to be going into labour that week, I didn't even have my hospital bag packed so Sarah frantically put all my things in a bag while I had a few more contractions and then we all left for the hospital. Sarah drove me to the hospital behind the midwives. Contractions were super painful in the car because I didn't have anything to grab onto, plus it was really cold. I was
so glad that I only lived 5 minutes from the hospital. I couldn't have done that for much longer. We arrived at the hospital at 430 and the midwives checked me in to my room. My mom arrived shortly after to step in and help me through contractions. Sarah set up her laptop with some soothing music and we were ready to go!
My water broke at 530am and there was a bit of blood so I had to have a fetal monitor placed on my tummy to check the baby's heart rate during contractions. Her heart rate had spiked to about 150 or so.This was the most painful part of the labour because I was forced to just lay in the bed for about an hour. Up to this point, the position that I favoured most during contractions was to be standing bent over on the bed pulling at the sheets. My mom pulled the sheets in the opposite direction and this counter pressure helped to take my energy away from the pain in my lower abdomen. (Unfortunately the next day I had bed sores on my arms from all the friction against the bed.) After labouring in the bed for about an hour, they said the baby's heart rate was normal so they took off the monitor and I went back to labouring the original way.
At 7am, the midwives did another internal exam to see how far I had come along…this was the most horrible moment of my labour. They checked me and I was STILL at 4cm even though it had been almost 4 hours since the first time they checked. But they had good news – my cervix was softened and pointing forward so things HAD progressed, but to me I was sad that the numbers didn't match this apparent progress. At this point, I hadn't slept or eaten in hours and my labour was seemingly not producing any results. I felt very upset and drained. Annabel or Laura suggested getting into the shower and spending time there to switch things up. THIS was the turning point for me. At the beginning of the shower, my mom and I discussed how much longer I'd be able to labour without medication and I was sad that we even had to discuss it but I just knew I couldn't keep going for much longer if nothing was going to change…45 minutes later, I felt like a new person and had a renewed energy that got me through the rest of the labour. After getting out of the shower, the contractions got really intense but I knew that the baby was coming soon. Since the midwives also knew that I needed to progress soon or we’d have to discuss alternatives, they suggested the birthing stool. This was the most painful position but yet the most satisfying; I felt like with each contraction that something was HAPPENING. From this point I don't really remember the timing of the next events – I went to "labour-land" as Geri (birthing class instructor) called it. It must've been the guttural/animalistic sound that I was
making but the midwives knew it was time to do another internal exam and VOILA, they discovered I was fully dilated! I could've told them too because I had a primal feeling that told me it was time to push.
So we got set up on the bed – I was going to push on all fours facing the back wall. We raised the back of the bed up so that I was more vertical which was a great position! And since I was just focusing on the wall behind me, I was really able to give the pushes my all and work to get the baby out! After 40 minutes of pushing, Samantha was born! They passed her through my legs and I was able to hold her within seconds of her birth. There was such an overwhelming feeling of peace and love in the room at that moment. These were our last moments being physically connected and I cherished every second! The cord/placenta then finished pulsing and Dave (her dad) cut the umbilical cord. What an amazing moment - to know that after all that work and with the help of my wonderful support team, I had given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl!
Samantha Grace was finally here on February 7at 11:20am weighing 6 pounds 10 ounces!
shower and a Gravol hoping to get some sleep, in case this turned out to be real labour. I also called my mom to give her a heads up in case she had to make her way to Toronto that night which is a 3 hour drive from my hometown of Chatham. Needless to say I couldn't sleep because the contractions were too strong. At about 12:30am, my mucous plug came out and I could barely breathe through the contractions - I knew this was it! I called my mom back at 130 who
(not) surprisingly had not slept since I called the first time. I then called Sarah to come over who had agreed to support me through the labour while I was waiting for my mom.
At 2:30am, contractions had been 4 min apart and lasting 45–60 seconds for about half hour so I called my midwife (Annabel was on call). She listened while I experienced two contractions on the phone and said she and her student Laura would be over as soon as they could! Sarah tried feeding me an apple but I could only eat one slice every few minutes. I really couldn't stomach anything at this point except water. Luckily Sarah had made me a delicious chickpea curry earlier that night! My roommate made me some "labour-ade" (miso, honey, lemon, water, crushed calcium and magnesium) to take to the hospital and this ended up being a life saver
throughout my labour as it was the only thing I could consume.
The midwives arrived around 3:30am and watched me through two contractions before they did an internal exam to check my dilation. Boy was that painful! They said I was 3-4cm dilated already. I was so happy to hear that! We decided to get ready to go to the hospital. Since I didn't think I was going to be going into labour that week, I didn't even have my hospital bag packed so Sarah frantically put all my things in a bag while I had a few more contractions and then we all left for the hospital. Sarah drove me to the hospital behind the midwives. Contractions were super painful in the car because I didn't have anything to grab onto, plus it was really cold. I was
so glad that I only lived 5 minutes from the hospital. I couldn't have done that for much longer. We arrived at the hospital at 430 and the midwives checked me in to my room. My mom arrived shortly after to step in and help me through contractions. Sarah set up her laptop with some soothing music and we were ready to go!
My water broke at 530am and there was a bit of blood so I had to have a fetal monitor placed on my tummy to check the baby's heart rate during contractions. Her heart rate had spiked to about 150 or so.This was the most painful part of the labour because I was forced to just lay in the bed for about an hour. Up to this point, the position that I favoured most during contractions was to be standing bent over on the bed pulling at the sheets. My mom pulled the sheets in the opposite direction and this counter pressure helped to take my energy away from the pain in my lower abdomen. (Unfortunately the next day I had bed sores on my arms from all the friction against the bed.) After labouring in the bed for about an hour, they said the baby's heart rate was normal so they took off the monitor and I went back to labouring the original way.
At 7am, the midwives did another internal exam to see how far I had come along…this was the most horrible moment of my labour. They checked me and I was STILL at 4cm even though it had been almost 4 hours since the first time they checked. But they had good news – my cervix was softened and pointing forward so things HAD progressed, but to me I was sad that the numbers didn't match this apparent progress. At this point, I hadn't slept or eaten in hours and my labour was seemingly not producing any results. I felt very upset and drained. Annabel or Laura suggested getting into the shower and spending time there to switch things up. THIS was the turning point for me. At the beginning of the shower, my mom and I discussed how much longer I'd be able to labour without medication and I was sad that we even had to discuss it but I just knew I couldn't keep going for much longer if nothing was going to change…45 minutes later, I felt like a new person and had a renewed energy that got me through the rest of the labour. After getting out of the shower, the contractions got really intense but I knew that the baby was coming soon. Since the midwives also knew that I needed to progress soon or we’d have to discuss alternatives, they suggested the birthing stool. This was the most painful position but yet the most satisfying; I felt like with each contraction that something was HAPPENING. From this point I don't really remember the timing of the next events – I went to "labour-land" as Geri (birthing class instructor) called it. It must've been the guttural/animalistic sound that I was
making but the midwives knew it was time to do another internal exam and VOILA, they discovered I was fully dilated! I could've told them too because I had a primal feeling that told me it was time to push.
So we got set up on the bed – I was going to push on all fours facing the back wall. We raised the back of the bed up so that I was more vertical which was a great position! And since I was just focusing on the wall behind me, I was really able to give the pushes my all and work to get the baby out! After 40 minutes of pushing, Samantha was born! They passed her through my legs and I was able to hold her within seconds of her birth. There was such an overwhelming feeling of peace and love in the room at that moment. These were our last moments being physically connected and I cherished every second! The cord/placenta then finished pulsing and Dave (her dad) cut the umbilical cord. What an amazing moment - to know that after all that work and with the help of my wonderful support team, I had given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl!
Samantha Grace was finally here on February 7at 11:20am weighing 6 pounds 10 ounces!
Birth Story
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Dear wonderful KM staff (especially Safire, Cindy & Kay),
I'm sorry it's taken me 3 months to do this (but you can understand how full life with a new baby can be!) I wanted to share the story of Zachary's birth, because of how transformative an experience it was.
The week between Christmas and New Years, I became very focused on all things birth-related. I dove back into the birth stories in 'Ina May's Guide to Childbirth', reviewed the labour info in 'The Birth Partner', and glanced ahead at newborn stuff in "The Baby Book'. I watched my belly get noticeably lower, and became excitedly aware of occasional Braxton Hicks contractions. One night I found myself wide awake later then usual, and I thought, "what if this is the 'burst of energy' they talk about?" I laughed at my paranoia - I wasn't "due" until January 25th, and everyone tells you that first babies are usually late.
On New Year's Eve, we were gathered at my parent's house (3 hours outside of Toronto) for a family party. During dinner, I was experiencing some annoying back pain and I suddenly felt exhausted. I lay down on the couch for a few minutes. When I sat up I felt a squidge between my legs, and thought, "well I didn't just pee myself..." Instinctively I jumped up and got off the carpet,
and suddenly I was leaking this incredible amount of fluid in front of my stunned family. I said, "so I guess I'm having my baby today" and the room erupted into cheers. They started to talk about nearby hospitals and asked me what I was going to do, and I said first I'd call my midwife and then I'd probably just head back to Toronto. Contractions hadn't started yet, so I wasn't worried about having my baby on the 401. I suddenly had to go to the bathroom with some urgency, so I had my husband page Safire and he brought me the phone. On the other side of the door I could here the commotion of my nervous and excited family, and I was grateful for the moment of peace. Safire explained that a 36 1/2 week baby isn't really any less developed then a 37
week baby, and that if I still wanted to, we could have the baby at home as planned. Shortly after, everyone touched the belly and gave us their blessings and Paz, my mum and I drove off into the night.
Sitting on a towel in the back seat, feeling like I was sitting in a kiddy-pool (because once your waters break, it just keeps coming!!) I tried awkwardly to sit with my pelvis tilted forward, so that the baby would be encouraged to descend in the best position. Shortly into the ride I started to feel gentle contractions, but I kept it to myself so as not to freak out my mother. I could still talk through them, so I wasn't worried. At some point we realized it had just gone past midnight, and laughing we wished each other a happy new year. I was achey and grateful to arrive home, around 1:30am. I tried to get some sleep, but was awoken regularly with contractions and back labour. I just couldn't get comfortable.
When morning finally came, I pottered around the house, occupying myself with silly "nesting" sort of things, stopping every 4 or 7 minutes for a contraction. They were getting gradually more intense, but hadn't yet fallen into a regular pattern. When Safire called to check on me, she was happy to hear that things were progressing well, and she expected me to be in full active labour by that evening. She explained that because I wasn't quite at 37 weeks, it was procedure for her to notify the on-call pediatrician at St. Joseph's, and that he might want me to come in to be checked (which could possibly start the spiral of interventions that I was hoping to avoid.) She respected my choice to decline this, which I really appreciated. She was concerned that I hadn't
really slept and said I'd need my strength and I should try to have a nap. I was so not interested in napping, but figured I'd better try. In bed, things continued to get more intense. Around 1pm, I gave up on sleeping. While in the bathroom, I felt something shift. My contractions on the toilet were more intense, and closer together. My mum could hear me "om-ing" through them, on the other side of the bathroom door, and was timing them. It seemed I had skipped 4 minutes apart entirely, and gone straight from 5 minutes to 3 minutes apart. She called Safire, who agreed to come right over.
What I found the most challenging was shifting my mindset about the pain. We are used to associating unpleasant sensation with something being wrong. In labour it is just the opposite. The contractions are making it progress, they are doing the hard work of softening and opening and guiding your baby into the world. I tried to surrender to them, to focus on opening. I found it helped to make low, open sounds, to brace off my partner, to hang off his shoulders and bury my face in his chest, to have my mum press on my lower back. I needed to feel grounded, and I found that labouring in bed was really uncomfortable. I remembered my Thai massage mats and had Paz set them up in the living room, with sheets on top, and some pillows nearby. It felt right to be near the ground, and I spent a lot of time on my hands and knees. My focus was inwards, my body was doing the work. And it is hard work!! I thought, "I understand why women want the drugs!"
I was grateful when Safire arrived, and told me how good I was doing. It refueled my faith in the process, and I felt safer with her there. She checked me, and I was already 8 cm dilated!! So no wonder it was intense!!! It was a relief to know I was getting close. She wasted no time setting up her gear and called Kay, my back-up. Suddenly, after a strong contraction, I felt like I was going to be sick and ran to the bathroom. My mum yelled in concern, "She's throwing up!" and Safire responded, "Great!!" I was in transition.
The urge to push came naturally. Suddenly my breathing during the contractions changed and I felt myself holding my breath and bearing down involuntarily. I was surprised at where I was feeling the pressure, and laughed in between contractions that it felt like I was going to poop out my baby! Safire suggested I try standing. That didn't feel quite right, and I was compelled to try the birth stool she had brought. We positioned it in front of Paz, who sat in a chair, and I lowered myself onto it, bracing my arms on his thighs. The midwives corrected my leg position and then all of the sudden the baby was crowning. This part was intense, but the end was within reach, there was no turning back, and I knew my baby needed me to be strong. They guided my hands to feel the head, which helped me focus my efforts. Kay drew my attention to my breathing, and I thought about just "breathing the baby out." I pushed out the head (my mum was yelling, "I can see the head, I can see the head!") and one more push brought the rest of the body sliding out. They guided him directly into my arms and I held him against my stomach. He cried, clearing his lungs. I tried to pull him up to my chest by the cord was too short. They helped us lie down, covering him with a blanket. Once the cord stopped pulsing, they invited Paz to cut it. Zachary Narayan Mistry was born at 3:20pm, on 1/1/11, 20 magnificent inches long and weighing 7 lbs 2 oz. I was expecting to be weepy in that moment, like "Oh my god I have a baby..." but I just felt serenely happy. Lying there holding my child, it was like he had always been with me. We just
looked at each other, reveling in what we'd been through, he was born, and I was reborn a mother.
After I pushed out the placenta, Safire asked if we wanted to see it, and it was so interesting to look at this glorious organ that had been nourishing my baby all those months. I was amazed by the size of it, and the complex network of veins - they looked like branches of a tree. Safire called it the tree of life.
I lost a lot of blood then, and needed a couple of shots and some uncomfortable uterus massaging to get it to slow down, but Safire and Kay worked so calmly and professionally, I never felt like I was in any danger. They helped me to the bedroom, and I watched Kay do Zachary's physical exam while Safire gave me some stitches. (In the ultrasound picture I have, his hand is by his face - well, he tried to be born that way as well!) Then they got us settled into bed, helped us get a start at breast-feeding, answered all of our questions, and when we were ready, left us to rest and get to know each other as a new family.
(Our postpartum care was fantastic as well. Safire or Cindy came to check on us the next morning, as well as on the 3rd and 6th day. They always made time to answer our questions and chat about how things were going. When he was 2 weeks old, I packed a diaper bag for the first time and took him into the clinic.)
To Safire, Cindy and Kay, I will be forever grateful to you for helping us get off to the best possible start. You supported my belief that birth is a natural process that we are built to do. You had my back in realizing my vision for a home birth, even though Zac was technically a few days pre-term and we hadn't even had the home visit yet. I felt your trust in me that I was capable of bringing my son safely into the world, and that gave me the courage to do it. You celebrated my birth experience and made me feel proud. You encouraged me to listen to my own intuition as a mother, and made me feel capable of caring for my beautiful, brand new person. Before he was born, I worried that I didn't have much experience with babies, and that I wouldn't know what to do. I was overjoyed to discover how naturally it comes. As you establish that bond with your child, you realize that you know what is best for them, and that it's okay not to "have it all figured out" because you learn together, and you keep learning every day.
Having my baby at home, surrounded by a few trusted people who had my best interests at heart, was the greatest thing I have ever done. I trusted that Zachary knew how to be born, and that I just had to get out of the way of the process. The moment he was in my arms, the pain and challenge was suddenly entirely worth it. I actually thought, "I could do that again!" The incredible sense of accomplishment gave me confidence in those early days with him, and helped me stay calm and persistent through our early challenges with establishing breast-feeding. It was wonderful having our first few checkups take place without me having to get out of bed! Through this whole process, we were in such good hands. I strongly recommend midwifery care, and am looking forward to reconnecting with Kensington Midwives when it is time to give Zachary a little brother or sister!
Thank you for everything.
love,
Thea, Paz & Zachary
I'm sorry it's taken me 3 months to do this (but you can understand how full life with a new baby can be!) I wanted to share the story of Zachary's birth, because of how transformative an experience it was.
The week between Christmas and New Years, I became very focused on all things birth-related. I dove back into the birth stories in 'Ina May's Guide to Childbirth', reviewed the labour info in 'The Birth Partner', and glanced ahead at newborn stuff in "The Baby Book'. I watched my belly get noticeably lower, and became excitedly aware of occasional Braxton Hicks contractions. One night I found myself wide awake later then usual, and I thought, "what if this is the 'burst of energy' they talk about?" I laughed at my paranoia - I wasn't "due" until January 25th, and everyone tells you that first babies are usually late.
On New Year's Eve, we were gathered at my parent's house (3 hours outside of Toronto) for a family party. During dinner, I was experiencing some annoying back pain and I suddenly felt exhausted. I lay down on the couch for a few minutes. When I sat up I felt a squidge between my legs, and thought, "well I didn't just pee myself..." Instinctively I jumped up and got off the carpet,
and suddenly I was leaking this incredible amount of fluid in front of my stunned family. I said, "so I guess I'm having my baby today" and the room erupted into cheers. They started to talk about nearby hospitals and asked me what I was going to do, and I said first I'd call my midwife and then I'd probably just head back to Toronto. Contractions hadn't started yet, so I wasn't worried about having my baby on the 401. I suddenly had to go to the bathroom with some urgency, so I had my husband page Safire and he brought me the phone. On the other side of the door I could here the commotion of my nervous and excited family, and I was grateful for the moment of peace. Safire explained that a 36 1/2 week baby isn't really any less developed then a 37
week baby, and that if I still wanted to, we could have the baby at home as planned. Shortly after, everyone touched the belly and gave us their blessings and Paz, my mum and I drove off into the night.
Sitting on a towel in the back seat, feeling like I was sitting in a kiddy-pool (because once your waters break, it just keeps coming!!) I tried awkwardly to sit with my pelvis tilted forward, so that the baby would be encouraged to descend in the best position. Shortly into the ride I started to feel gentle contractions, but I kept it to myself so as not to freak out my mother. I could still talk through them, so I wasn't worried. At some point we realized it had just gone past midnight, and laughing we wished each other a happy new year. I was achey and grateful to arrive home, around 1:30am. I tried to get some sleep, but was awoken regularly with contractions and back labour. I just couldn't get comfortable.
When morning finally came, I pottered around the house, occupying myself with silly "nesting" sort of things, stopping every 4 or 7 minutes for a contraction. They were getting gradually more intense, but hadn't yet fallen into a regular pattern. When Safire called to check on me, she was happy to hear that things were progressing well, and she expected me to be in full active labour by that evening. She explained that because I wasn't quite at 37 weeks, it was procedure for her to notify the on-call pediatrician at St. Joseph's, and that he might want me to come in to be checked (which could possibly start the spiral of interventions that I was hoping to avoid.) She respected my choice to decline this, which I really appreciated. She was concerned that I hadn't
really slept and said I'd need my strength and I should try to have a nap. I was so not interested in napping, but figured I'd better try. In bed, things continued to get more intense. Around 1pm, I gave up on sleeping. While in the bathroom, I felt something shift. My contractions on the toilet were more intense, and closer together. My mum could hear me "om-ing" through them, on the other side of the bathroom door, and was timing them. It seemed I had skipped 4 minutes apart entirely, and gone straight from 5 minutes to 3 minutes apart. She called Safire, who agreed to come right over.
What I found the most challenging was shifting my mindset about the pain. We are used to associating unpleasant sensation with something being wrong. In labour it is just the opposite. The contractions are making it progress, they are doing the hard work of softening and opening and guiding your baby into the world. I tried to surrender to them, to focus on opening. I found it helped to make low, open sounds, to brace off my partner, to hang off his shoulders and bury my face in his chest, to have my mum press on my lower back. I needed to feel grounded, and I found that labouring in bed was really uncomfortable. I remembered my Thai massage mats and had Paz set them up in the living room, with sheets on top, and some pillows nearby. It felt right to be near the ground, and I spent a lot of time on my hands and knees. My focus was inwards, my body was doing the work. And it is hard work!! I thought, "I understand why women want the drugs!"
I was grateful when Safire arrived, and told me how good I was doing. It refueled my faith in the process, and I felt safer with her there. She checked me, and I was already 8 cm dilated!! So no wonder it was intense!!! It was a relief to know I was getting close. She wasted no time setting up her gear and called Kay, my back-up. Suddenly, after a strong contraction, I felt like I was going to be sick and ran to the bathroom. My mum yelled in concern, "She's throwing up!" and Safire responded, "Great!!" I was in transition.
The urge to push came naturally. Suddenly my breathing during the contractions changed and I felt myself holding my breath and bearing down involuntarily. I was surprised at where I was feeling the pressure, and laughed in between contractions that it felt like I was going to poop out my baby! Safire suggested I try standing. That didn't feel quite right, and I was compelled to try the birth stool she had brought. We positioned it in front of Paz, who sat in a chair, and I lowered myself onto it, bracing my arms on his thighs. The midwives corrected my leg position and then all of the sudden the baby was crowning. This part was intense, but the end was within reach, there was no turning back, and I knew my baby needed me to be strong. They guided my hands to feel the head, which helped me focus my efforts. Kay drew my attention to my breathing, and I thought about just "breathing the baby out." I pushed out the head (my mum was yelling, "I can see the head, I can see the head!") and one more push brought the rest of the body sliding out. They guided him directly into my arms and I held him against my stomach. He cried, clearing his lungs. I tried to pull him up to my chest by the cord was too short. They helped us lie down, covering him with a blanket. Once the cord stopped pulsing, they invited Paz to cut it. Zachary Narayan Mistry was born at 3:20pm, on 1/1/11, 20 magnificent inches long and weighing 7 lbs 2 oz. I was expecting to be weepy in that moment, like "Oh my god I have a baby..." but I just felt serenely happy. Lying there holding my child, it was like he had always been with me. We just
looked at each other, reveling in what we'd been through, he was born, and I was reborn a mother.
After I pushed out the placenta, Safire asked if we wanted to see it, and it was so interesting to look at this glorious organ that had been nourishing my baby all those months. I was amazed by the size of it, and the complex network of veins - they looked like branches of a tree. Safire called it the tree of life.
I lost a lot of blood then, and needed a couple of shots and some uncomfortable uterus massaging to get it to slow down, but Safire and Kay worked so calmly and professionally, I never felt like I was in any danger. They helped me to the bedroom, and I watched Kay do Zachary's physical exam while Safire gave me some stitches. (In the ultrasound picture I have, his hand is by his face - well, he tried to be born that way as well!) Then they got us settled into bed, helped us get a start at breast-feeding, answered all of our questions, and when we were ready, left us to rest and get to know each other as a new family.
(Our postpartum care was fantastic as well. Safire or Cindy came to check on us the next morning, as well as on the 3rd and 6th day. They always made time to answer our questions and chat about how things were going. When he was 2 weeks old, I packed a diaper bag for the first time and took him into the clinic.)
To Safire, Cindy and Kay, I will be forever grateful to you for helping us get off to the best possible start. You supported my belief that birth is a natural process that we are built to do. You had my back in realizing my vision for a home birth, even though Zac was technically a few days pre-term and we hadn't even had the home visit yet. I felt your trust in me that I was capable of bringing my son safely into the world, and that gave me the courage to do it. You celebrated my birth experience and made me feel proud. You encouraged me to listen to my own intuition as a mother, and made me feel capable of caring for my beautiful, brand new person. Before he was born, I worried that I didn't have much experience with babies, and that I wouldn't know what to do. I was overjoyed to discover how naturally it comes. As you establish that bond with your child, you realize that you know what is best for them, and that it's okay not to "have it all figured out" because you learn together, and you keep learning every day.
Having my baby at home, surrounded by a few trusted people who had my best interests at heart, was the greatest thing I have ever done. I trusted that Zachary knew how to be born, and that I just had to get out of the way of the process. The moment he was in my arms, the pain and challenge was suddenly entirely worth it. I actually thought, "I could do that again!" The incredible sense of accomplishment gave me confidence in those early days with him, and helped me stay calm and persistent through our early challenges with establishing breast-feeding. It was wonderful having our first few checkups take place without me having to get out of bed! Through this whole process, we were in such good hands. I strongly recommend midwifery care, and am looking forward to reconnecting with Kensington Midwives when it is time to give Zachary a little brother or sister!
Thank you for everything.
love,
Thea, Paz & Zachary
Birth Story: Blaze
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
I loved reading the birth stories on the blog, I found they were very helpful before the birth of cordelia, but so few of them! So I wanted to contribute mine as well.
My water sprung a slow, trickling hind-leak Friday afternoon but there was nothing we could do to get labour started. Older sister Cordelia went to spend the day with her grandparents while Corinne led us through all the midwifery tricks - some herbs, a couple of stretch-and-sweeps, labour tincture, walking, baths and showers, more walking, more stretch-and-sweeps, and as I got closer and closer to the 24-hour mark tried some castor oil – that baby girl was not budging. Each of these produced mild, fragile-seeming contractions that just didn’t take (which was particularly annoying with the castor oil considering what else it produced). Corinne found that she could stretch my cervix to 4 cms but it would slide back down to 2-3 on its own without the constant contractions to help it along. We had a series of start-and-stop bouts of half-hearted contractions, but nothing really serious and we were very quickly running out of time. Basically everything was read to go, if only my uterus would take the hint!
These mild contractions did bring Blazes head down slightly lower and eventually allowed Corinne to stretch me to 5 cms, but it would slide back to 3-ish again on its own. So while things were indeed moving, I was still progressing much slower than she would have liked. Looks like my body just wanted to wait a few more days, but unfortunately we were on the clock and debating having to go into the hospital. With that scary induction looming, she checked again and found that she could feel the bag of waters falling lower and lower. this meant we had one option left to avoid the hospital. she decided to pull out one last trick and go all-in and break my water – that certainly got it started. Jim called his parents to let them know that Cordelia would be having a sleepover with them, we were finally in labour!
Corinne encouraged me to get up and keep pacing around but I only got as far as the bathroom, where I stayed on the toilet clinging to Jim had a ridiculously fast but very intense labour. I wanted to start pushing but our second midwife, Megan and our student Claire hadn’t shown up yet and Corinne hadn't had enough time to get all of her equipment set up yet so she told me to try to wait, but not pushing hurt so much more that mostly I ended up pushing anyway. I moved to a birth stool and we were all ready to go, Corinne had Jim all ready to call 911 because my backups wouldn’t make it in time, but when she checked she found that my cervix was about 6cms and told me we still had time. Even though I was only 6 cms, Blaze's head was coming down and pushing my cervix out of the way as it went, but I needed to be gentle and work on stretching out those last few cms and just try to wait. Heavily cursing my clearly ‘not-with-the-program’ cervix, I got in the shower and tried to pace myself. Jim, having learned from our last labour that he was going to get soaked, took his shirt off this time before standing outside the shower allowing me to hang off him and bury my head in his shoulder and make loud scary noises directly in his ear. Corinne probably with a sigh of relief, used the extra few minutes she needed to actually finish setting up her stuff and Megan and Claire showed up just in time. I told them I could feel a head coming down and I was going to start pushing again regardless of whether they liked it or not so they moved me back to the birth stool. My cervix still wasn’t completely out of the way but they decided to let me push anyway as that head was coming down fast and I couldn’t not push anymore. This time, I had a mirror (the one thing I wish I had when Cordelia was born) which provided a very awesome, though somewhat startling view (I recommend a mirror to anyone). Watching a miniature, yet fully complete human slide out of you is a very sobering experience. When her head crowned I got a quick glimpse of a head full of dark hair and yelped at the completely unexpected burning pain (i dont remember cordelia hurting so badly when she crowned) and Corinne said "pant through it, just pant through it", which helped immensely and allowed me to get my focus back again. Blaze was born in less than 5 pushes, the placenta came in one more. Thankfully I didn’t tear this time.
The whole process after breaking my water took only half an hour, though to me it felt longer. I feel like the pain was much more intense than what I went through with Cordelia, but I think it’s because it happened so fast, with contractions practically on top of one another from the start that I didn’t have time to adjust or accommodate myself to the quickly-rising pain levels. I alternated between humming to myself (I was humming cordelias bed-time song between contractions and then just holding out one long, loud note in a contraction) focusing on taking long, deep breaths and counting each slow exhale out loud through a contraction and tossed in some high-pitched, puppy-whine squealing from time to time for good measure too. I told Jim at one point “I don’t like it! I don’t want to do it anymore!” and he said “good! That means we’re almost there”.
Blaze was pink and healthy, a little on the sleepy side and seemed confused about the whole outside world, and still thinking she should be on the inside she squawked once or twice about having to come out and then promptly went back to sleep.
Blaze Saffron Austin McGarva
7 pounds
51 cms long
Born at 9:34 pm on august 13, after 34 minutes of active labour and the previous 26 hours of waiting around getting frustrated.
My water sprung a slow, trickling hind-leak Friday afternoon but there was nothing we could do to get labour started. Older sister Cordelia went to spend the day with her grandparents while Corinne led us through all the midwifery tricks - some herbs, a couple of stretch-and-sweeps, labour tincture, walking, baths and showers, more walking, more stretch-and-sweeps, and as I got closer and closer to the 24-hour mark tried some castor oil – that baby girl was not budging. Each of these produced mild, fragile-seeming contractions that just didn’t take (which was particularly annoying with the castor oil considering what else it produced). Corinne found that she could stretch my cervix to 4 cms but it would slide back down to 2-3 on its own without the constant contractions to help it along. We had a series of start-and-stop bouts of half-hearted contractions, but nothing really serious and we were very quickly running out of time. Basically everything was read to go, if only my uterus would take the hint!
These mild contractions did bring Blazes head down slightly lower and eventually allowed Corinne to stretch me to 5 cms, but it would slide back to 3-ish again on its own. So while things were indeed moving, I was still progressing much slower than she would have liked. Looks like my body just wanted to wait a few more days, but unfortunately we were on the clock and debating having to go into the hospital. With that scary induction looming, she checked again and found that she could feel the bag of waters falling lower and lower. this meant we had one option left to avoid the hospital. she decided to pull out one last trick and go all-in and break my water – that certainly got it started. Jim called his parents to let them know that Cordelia would be having a sleepover with them, we were finally in labour!
Corinne encouraged me to get up and keep pacing around but I only got as far as the bathroom, where I stayed on the toilet clinging to Jim had a ridiculously fast but very intense labour. I wanted to start pushing but our second midwife, Megan and our student Claire hadn’t shown up yet and Corinne hadn't had enough time to get all of her equipment set up yet so she told me to try to wait, but not pushing hurt so much more that mostly I ended up pushing anyway. I moved to a birth stool and we were all ready to go, Corinne had Jim all ready to call 911 because my backups wouldn’t make it in time, but when she checked she found that my cervix was about 6cms and told me we still had time. Even though I was only 6 cms, Blaze's head was coming down and pushing my cervix out of the way as it went, but I needed to be gentle and work on stretching out those last few cms and just try to wait. Heavily cursing my clearly ‘not-with-the-program’ cervix, I got in the shower and tried to pace myself. Jim, having learned from our last labour that he was going to get soaked, took his shirt off this time before standing outside the shower allowing me to hang off him and bury my head in his shoulder and make loud scary noises directly in his ear. Corinne probably with a sigh of relief, used the extra few minutes she needed to actually finish setting up her stuff and Megan and Claire showed up just in time. I told them I could feel a head coming down and I was going to start pushing again regardless of whether they liked it or not so they moved me back to the birth stool. My cervix still wasn’t completely out of the way but they decided to let me push anyway as that head was coming down fast and I couldn’t not push anymore. This time, I had a mirror (the one thing I wish I had when Cordelia was born) which provided a very awesome, though somewhat startling view (I recommend a mirror to anyone). Watching a miniature, yet fully complete human slide out of you is a very sobering experience. When her head crowned I got a quick glimpse of a head full of dark hair and yelped at the completely unexpected burning pain (i dont remember cordelia hurting so badly when she crowned) and Corinne said "pant through it, just pant through it", which helped immensely and allowed me to get my focus back again. Blaze was born in less than 5 pushes, the placenta came in one more. Thankfully I didn’t tear this time.
The whole process after breaking my water took only half an hour, though to me it felt longer. I feel like the pain was much more intense than what I went through with Cordelia, but I think it’s because it happened so fast, with contractions practically on top of one another from the start that I didn’t have time to adjust or accommodate myself to the quickly-rising pain levels. I alternated between humming to myself (I was humming cordelias bed-time song between contractions and then just holding out one long, loud note in a contraction) focusing on taking long, deep breaths and counting each slow exhale out loud through a contraction and tossed in some high-pitched, puppy-whine squealing from time to time for good measure too. I told Jim at one point “I don’t like it! I don’t want to do it anymore!” and he said “good! That means we’re almost there”.
Blaze was pink and healthy, a little on the sleepy side and seemed confused about the whole outside world, and still thinking she should be on the inside she squawked once or twice about having to come out and then promptly went back to sleep.
Blaze Saffron Austin McGarva
7 pounds
51 cms long
Born at 9:34 pm on august 13, after 34 minutes of active labour and the previous 26 hours of waiting around getting frustrated.
Homebirth
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
It has taken me a while to get to this but I wanted to take the chance to share my home birth experience with future Kensington midwife clients. My husband and I did not plan on a home birth; it was a last minute change and one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to us. I had been in labor for about 5 hours and it was time for us to move to the hospital when we found out that the hospital was full. Lindsay our midwife had to give us our options and we had three: 1) we could go to St. Jo’s
but who knows where the baby would be delivered and it definitely wouldn’t be comfortable 2) we could have the baby at home or 3) we could go to another hospital but Lindsay would have no privileges and she wouldn’t be able to be the primary care giver. The answer was obvious to us, we would stay home. And the reason that this answer was so clear to us was because we had the utmost trust in Lindsay and having her by our side was what most important, not being
in a hospital. When Lindsay gave us the options you might think that we would have been concerned about not being safe if we had a home birth. This did not even pass through our mind. We had complete trust in Lindsay, we knew she would be able to safely bring our baby into the world and if anything came up she would be able to manage it. And we couldn’t have been more right.
For the early parts of labor Lindsay was a calming force in the room. As labor progressed and things got more intense she helped push me through by telling me how great a job I was doing, telling me how strong I was and how lucky my child would be to have such a strong mother. With each push the support, encouragement and advice that I got from Lindsay helped me to keep going. It felt so wonderful to have someone at your side to support you who you trusted completely. This complete trust in Lindsay ended up giving us one of the greatest gifts in our life– the birth of Charlotte safely and peacefully at home.
As a result of this experience we will now have all our children at home – we wouldn’t have it any other way. It is a grounding experience to bring such a bundle of joy into the world without any interventions and in the comfort of your own home where you can move around as much as you want, go in and out of the bath or shower, eat whatever you want, and have all of your loved ones around you. It was one of the best days of my life and this was all possible because of the great skill and support that Lindsay and Kensington midwives brought to our family. We will forever thank Lindsay and Kensington midwives for helping us to have this amazing experience and we will always hold the memories close to our hearts.
but who knows where the baby would be delivered and it definitely wouldn’t be comfortable 2) we could have the baby at home or 3) we could go to another hospital but Lindsay would have no privileges and she wouldn’t be able to be the primary care giver. The answer was obvious to us, we would stay home. And the reason that this answer was so clear to us was because we had the utmost trust in Lindsay and having her by our side was what most important, not being
in a hospital. When Lindsay gave us the options you might think that we would have been concerned about not being safe if we had a home birth. This did not even pass through our mind. We had complete trust in Lindsay, we knew she would be able to safely bring our baby into the world and if anything came up she would be able to manage it. And we couldn’t have been more right.
For the early parts of labor Lindsay was a calming force in the room. As labor progressed and things got more intense she helped push me through by telling me how great a job I was doing, telling me how strong I was and how lucky my child would be to have such a strong mother. With each push the support, encouragement and advice that I got from Lindsay helped me to keep going. It felt so wonderful to have someone at your side to support you who you trusted completely. This complete trust in Lindsay ended up giving us one of the greatest gifts in our life– the birth of Charlotte safely and peacefully at home.
As a result of this experience we will now have all our children at home – we wouldn’t have it any other way. It is a grounding experience to bring such a bundle of joy into the world without any interventions and in the comfort of your own home where you can move around as much as you want, go in and out of the bath or shower, eat whatever you want, and have all of your loved ones around you. It was one of the best days of my life and this was all possible because of the great skill and support that Lindsay and Kensington midwives brought to our family. We will forever thank Lindsay and Kensington midwives for helping us to have this amazing experience and we will always hold the memories close to our hearts.
Baby Claire!
Saturday, June 26, 2010
It's taken me a while, but finally I've found a few minutes to sit down and write all of you a proper thank-you. I have had an amazing experience with you, and of course the most amazing part was the birth of my little daughter on April 2. Thanks to Kay, Elodie (the student) and Safire, who were there during the birth, but thanks as well to everyone I dealt with at your practice.
When people ask me why I decided to have a midwife rather than a doctor for the birth of my daughter, Claire, so many motives pop into my mind. There are a few reasons, though, that stand out:
- Whenever I called with an emergency (real or imagined) it was dealt with immediately. Perhaps even more importantly, Kay, Lindsay, and Elodie always made me feel as though I had done precisely the right thing by calling.
- My appointments were never rushed. There was always enough time to address any questions and concerns that I had. (I compare this to visits with my obstetrician before I switched to Kensington Midwives: I felt like I was part of a pregnant lady assembly line, with visits taking about 10 minutes before I was ushered out to make room for the next pregnant lady)
- Kay, Lindsay, and Elodie helped me make informed decisions about my pregnancy. They presented me with choices, together with possible benefits and drawbacks of each option. They would give me their own opinion if I asked, but they always encouraged me to make the decision that was right for me.
- Everyone I dealt with (including my own midwives, other midwives and Fatima, the administrator) was friendly, professional, and flexible. If I ever needed to come in for an unscheduled visit, accommodations were immediately made for me.
-During my labour and childbirth their confidence and professionalism helped me stay calm.
Even when things could have been a bit scary (I bled quite a bit after Claire was born) their composure prevented me from panicking.
-On the first day after Claire was born, I was having trouble breastfeeding. I called, and Kay and Elodie came immediately to help. Feeding my new baby was so important, and they helped me get sorted out right away. Now Claire is an ultra-efficient little eater...more like a shark than a baby sometimes. My husband and I have both remarked several times that it was after Claire was born that our midwives really shone.
The most important reason why we were glad that we went with Kensington Midwives was that they helped us bring our beautiful, miraculous little baby into the world. Thank-you Kay, Lindsay, Safire, Elodie, and everyone else at Kensington Midwives!!!
When people ask me why I decided to have a midwife rather than a doctor for the birth of my daughter, Claire, so many motives pop into my mind. There are a few reasons, though, that stand out:
- Whenever I called with an emergency (real or imagined) it was dealt with immediately. Perhaps even more importantly, Kay, Lindsay, and Elodie always made me feel as though I had done precisely the right thing by calling.
- My appointments were never rushed. There was always enough time to address any questions and concerns that I had. (I compare this to visits with my obstetrician before I switched to Kensington Midwives: I felt like I was part of a pregnant lady assembly line, with visits taking about 10 minutes before I was ushered out to make room for the next pregnant lady)
- Kay, Lindsay, and Elodie helped me make informed decisions about my pregnancy. They presented me with choices, together with possible benefits and drawbacks of each option. They would give me their own opinion if I asked, but they always encouraged me to make the decision that was right for me.
- Everyone I dealt with (including my own midwives, other midwives and Fatima, the administrator) was friendly, professional, and flexible. If I ever needed to come in for an unscheduled visit, accommodations were immediately made for me.
-During my labour and childbirth their confidence and professionalism helped me stay calm.
Even when things could have been a bit scary (I bled quite a bit after Claire was born) their composure prevented me from panicking.
-On the first day after Claire was born, I was having trouble breastfeeding. I called, and Kay and Elodie came immediately to help. Feeding my new baby was so important, and they helped me get sorted out right away. Now Claire is an ultra-efficient little eater...more like a shark than a baby sometimes. My husband and I have both remarked several times that it was after Claire was born that our midwives really shone.
The most important reason why we were glad that we went with Kensington Midwives was that they helped us bring our beautiful, miraculous little baby into the world. Thank-you Kay, Lindsay, Safire, Elodie, and everyone else at Kensington Midwives!!!
A Kensington Midwives Testimonial
Saturday, April 17, 2010
I feel that everyone who comes into my life can teach me something. Kensington Midwives have been an exception, they have taught me a LOT.
What I learned from Babette:
From Babette I learned that a quiet, calming voice is sometimes all that is needed to alleviate worries and sometimes even pain. She taught me to relax through most issues, pertaining to my health and my children’s health and well being. When I had to take my 8 day old baby to the hospital, she was my voice when I couldn’t speak… literally.
What I learned from Kay:
From Kay I learned to look at everyone through the eyes of a midwife. She said to me once when I questioned her on why she became a midwife that even the jerk who cut her off on the highway started out life the same way as the babies she delivers and that made them beautiful. There’s something very profound about that thought and I began to see the sanctity of her work.
What I learned from Lindsay:
Not sure where to begin with Lindsay. I’m rarely at a loss of words, but when I think about what
she has done for me, words can’t really describe. She has been with me during the most vulnerable hours of my life. So we carry a special bond. She taught me that I am strong. She taught me that it’s ok to be weak.
During my first birth, she taught me how to remain calm during some scary moments. I was
always confidant in her skills but when she knelt down so she could look me in the eye (during a painful contraction) to tell me she thought I needed an epidural I was reassured that I was in extremely good hands. That moment will forever be in my memories when I think about her.
During my second birth, she taught me to let go of expectations. I wanted her to deliver my second baby but she said the right midwife, the one I needed, will be there when it happens. And sure enough, 10 hours before she was going off-call I went into labour. After the birth I think her words were “you work well with deadlines don’t you?”.
She coached me (and my husband) through the most difficult and intense moments of my life. Childbirth has been life altering for me, and she has been a big part of that transformation. The first few critical weeks of caring for a newborn, I felt so confident in her advice and support that it made me a better Mother.
I have loved being pregnant and giving birth. I feel a little sad that I likely won’t experience it again. I can’t imagine having done without Kensington Midwives.
Natasha
What I learned from Babette:
From Babette I learned that a quiet, calming voice is sometimes all that is needed to alleviate worries and sometimes even pain. She taught me to relax through most issues, pertaining to my health and my children’s health and well being. When I had to take my 8 day old baby to the hospital, she was my voice when I couldn’t speak… literally.
What I learned from Kay:
From Kay I learned to look at everyone through the eyes of a midwife. She said to me once when I questioned her on why she became a midwife that even the jerk who cut her off on the highway started out life the same way as the babies she delivers and that made them beautiful. There’s something very profound about that thought and I began to see the sanctity of her work.
What I learned from Lindsay:
Not sure where to begin with Lindsay. I’m rarely at a loss of words, but when I think about what
she has done for me, words can’t really describe. She has been with me during the most vulnerable hours of my life. So we carry a special bond. She taught me that I am strong. She taught me that it’s ok to be weak.
During my first birth, she taught me how to remain calm during some scary moments. I was
always confidant in her skills but when she knelt down so she could look me in the eye (during a painful contraction) to tell me she thought I needed an epidural I was reassured that I was in extremely good hands. That moment will forever be in my memories when I think about her.
During my second birth, she taught me to let go of expectations. I wanted her to deliver my second baby but she said the right midwife, the one I needed, will be there when it happens. And sure enough, 10 hours before she was going off-call I went into labour. After the birth I think her words were “you work well with deadlines don’t you?”.
She coached me (and my husband) through the most difficult and intense moments of my life. Childbirth has been life altering for me, and she has been a big part of that transformation. The first few critical weeks of caring for a newborn, I felt so confident in her advice and support that it made me a better Mother.
I have loved being pregnant and giving birth. I feel a little sad that I likely won’t experience it again. I can’t imagine having done without Kensington Midwives.
Natasha
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Elana's Story
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Both our daughters are Kensington babies: Sophia (born in November 2006 at St. Joseph's Hospital) and Simone (born at home in September 2008). This photograph was taken 12 hours after Simone was born. And yes, Sophia is chewing on a condom wrapper as if to say "Hey, mom & dad, next time use one of these".
Words cannot capture the gratitude and admiration that we feel towards these remarkable sages femmes. A special thank you to Pam (I will have to fly back to Canada if I get pregnant again because you and pregnancy go together in our family -- and maybe one day a birth, too *smile*) and Elaine(my voice when I could not speak, my strength when I could not stand), Lindsay and Babette, Houley, Raquel and the many students (especially Holly) whose paths we crossed.
Our home - wherever in the world it may be - will always be open to you.
Words cannot capture the gratitude and admiration that we feel towards these remarkable sages femmes. A special thank you to Pam (I will have to fly back to Canada if I get pregnant again because you and pregnancy go together in our family -- and maybe one day a birth, too *smile*) and Elaine(my voice when I could not speak, my strength when I could not stand), Lindsay and Babette, Houley, Raquel and the many students (especially Holly) whose paths we crossed.
Our home - wherever in the world it may be - will always be open to you.
I Heart Kensington Midwives
Friday, March 14, 2008
After giving birth to my son, I was wondering why I’m very fond and grateful to the Kensington Midwives, so after a few weeks of thinking I realized that I shared with them one of the most intimate moments of my life. Besides conceiving a child, giving birth involves some sort of intimacy and vulnerability. Being naked and exposed in
front of these women (meaning emotionally and physically), made me feel a bond with them.
Their patience and caring attitude made me feel safe and strong. Corrine was always there answering to every call, didn’t matter if it was a false alarm or simply to share a feeling. She had a loving voice and time to listen. Andrea was always cheerful and made me feel we were doing the right thing, always with open mind and respect to my feelings. Houley’s kindness and big smile gave me a peace of mind. Pam is part of this family’s history, she’s been here for us twice, and we really appreciate her.
My pregnancy wasn’t easy, with a “dynamic” cervix, a threat of premature labor, a previous gestational diabetes pregnancy, a tiring trip to Mexico, a six long weeks of false labor and an induction at 41 weeks, but it ended up with a beautiful fast birth.
There are not enough words to thank this group of women for their hard work and dedication. It’s hard to say goodbye but our time here is over. We sure are going to miss them very much, but we’ll have them in a special place in our minds.
Mil gracias Corrine, Andrea, Houley and Pam.
Love
Nuria
front of these women (meaning emotionally and physically), made me feel a bond with them.
Their patience and caring attitude made me feel safe and strong. Corrine was always there answering to every call, didn’t matter if it was a false alarm or simply to share a feeling. She had a loving voice and time to listen. Andrea was always cheerful and made me feel we were doing the right thing, always with open mind and respect to my feelings. Houley’s kindness and big smile gave me a peace of mind. Pam is part of this family’s history, she’s been here for us twice, and we really appreciate her.
My pregnancy wasn’t easy, with a “dynamic” cervix, a threat of premature labor, a previous gestational diabetes pregnancy, a tiring trip to Mexico, a six long weeks of false labor and an induction at 41 weeks, but it ended up with a beautiful fast birth.
There are not enough words to thank this group of women for their hard work and dedication. It’s hard to say goodbye but our time here is over. We sure are going to miss them very much, but we’ll have them in a special place in our minds.
Mil gracias Corrine, Andrea, Houley and Pam.
Love
Nuria
Labour-Ball!
Friday, March 14, 2008
Midwife Lindsay MacDougall with Kate (3rd time super -birther) in labour at St. Joseph's Health Centre
Welcome baby Abigael, born January
2008! Thanks to Kate for sharing this photo.
Welcome baby Abigael, born January
2008! Thanks to Kate for sharing this photo.
Julie and Dylan
Monday, January 28, 2008
Tribute to Kensington Midwives
Monday, January 28, 2008
I am French and left Paris for Toronto at the end
of my seventh month of pregnancy.
That's when Djoume, my partner, we got to know Lindsay and Manavi, our midwives. Since the very beginning, we loved them. Their sweetness,their smile, understanding, tolerance...we felt that at once,during the first appointment with Lindsay, and forever.
My pregnancy was very healthy. I was not more anxious than any other pregnant woman, I guess, and not less. Of course, moving to a new city and country during your first pregnancy is a source of anxiety, but I was really feeling secure in my midwives' hands!
Then labor came. Manavi was on call. She was really supportive, and as usual, full of respect and understanding. I did not notice (I was to busy with contractions) but Djoume underlined the fact that Manavi did not try to interfere during labor, she wasn't intrusive at all, on the contrary! She even told us "you know guys, it seems that contractions are stronger when I am not around, you're doing very well together so I'll stay in this room and leave you alone". I had never heard a care giver admit that it was better without them! My labor was very long, and even though we would have liked a home birth, we ended up at the hospital for a c-section. Then again, Manavi was supportive and understanding. She understood why I was crying, why I was so disappointed but explained me with highly soothing words that it was the best, and the only option.
Pregnancy, labor... everyone knows that midwives help you through those deeply emotional times. But I am most grateful to Manavi, Lindsay and Elaine for their help, support, understanding, respect and knowledge for the post-partum part.
They gave us lots of advice, about breastfeeding and baby care. All the advice and explanations were full of common sense and meant at helping parents not to feel guilty, especially mummy.
Gosh, how guilty I felt. The first days of the baby are so painful, I had never had such contradictory feelings. I felt trapped, I felt that I my life was totally controlled by this new little human being, that I had lost my self and wasn't really feeling love for this baby, I was crying at least three or four times a day. I was feeling guilty,and inadequate, and a bad mother, not able to supply enough milk, and poorly latching the baby on and... well thinking that everything starting from my behavior to my feelings was WRONG. Even though I was prepared for the "baby blues" I couldn't imagine such strong negative emotions.
Manavi, Lindsay, Elaine took time to listen to me, and they kept encouraging me, giving advice, telling me I was doing a great job. They never judged me and remained so supportive and understanding. I think I wouldn't have succeeded in breastfeeding without their advice. They managed to make me feel as confident as a newborn mother can feel.
Above all, Manavi always succeeded in putting Souleymane to sleep before she would leave us on the first days... that was of great help and support.
My last appointment with Manavi is coming soon, within 2 days. I already said goodbye to Lindsay. I feel as if they were friends to me, they helped me to go through such a major change in my life. They actually became my best friends and best mothers during the post-partum period. But I understand that I must grow up, that I can't remain a newborn mother forever. The cord has to be cut!
Thanks. I will miss you and never forget you.
Elise
Kensington Midwives Make Cute Babies!
Thurday, January 10, 2008
Baby Sevrin born April 2007
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Welcome Baby Ruby
Monday, September 24, 2007
Thank you so much for all your help.
We are saddened to think that soon we will not be seeing you regularly.
We are delighted with our new little human.
Here is a pic. at five days
John & Corrie & Ruby Tait Wilcox
Mariana
Thursday, September 6, 2007
We want to share with you some photos... this is Mariana Gonzalez, she was born on August 4th... Lindsay and Maryam were with us.
Thank you for all your support.
Carlos Gonzalez y Paola Vidal
Welcome Baby Desmond
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Baby Desmond Lucchese with happy new mom Emily.
Baby Desmond with Midwife Houley Bah and midwifery student Feben
Baby Weston
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Welcome baby Weston born April 23 2007. With older sister Stella.
Baby Photos
Monday, April 2, 2007
Vivien, born February 17, 2007 at home.
More Baby Photos!
Monday, April 2, 2007
Baby girl born November 8, 2006.
Jason Lloyd's first bath.
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Amanda
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Welcome Nayen!
Friday, February 2, 2007
Born November 5, 2006.
